Biography
Four sides cut by B.F. (Frank) Shelton for Victor Records at the landmark Bristol Sessions in Bristol, TN, on July 29, 1927, account for his entire recorded legacy. Modal banjo tunings gave three of those performances—"Darling Cora," "Pretty Polly," and "Oh Molly Dear"—an eerie, archaic quality whose brooding atmosphere nearly matched the stark intensity of blues banjoist Dock Boggs’ better-known contemporaneous sides. Shelton may have picked up the remaining piece, "Cold Penitentiary Blues," during a stint behind bars. Born in Clay County, KY, in 1902, he traveled from his home in Corbin, KY—where he worked as a barber—to Bristol, delivered the four numbers that later shaped generations of banjoists including Pete Seeger, and never entered a studio again. Equally proficient on harmonica and guitar, Shelton died in 1963.
Singles