Biography
Edward Lamonte Franklin entered the world on 16 January 1928 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, and departed on 31 July 1975 in the same city. His mother supplied numerous compositions to her tenant Leroy Carr, which sparked Franklin’s early immersion in music through the piano, an instrument on which he proved every bit as skilled as he later became on guitar. Local players Scrapper Blackwell and Jesse Ellery, the latter known for his work beside Jack ‘Champion’ Dupree, left their mark on Franklin’s guitar approach, yet he retained the flexibility to overhaul his style entirely when performing alongside an amplified Chicago band. At the keyboard he naturally drew from Leroy Carr, yet across both instruments Franklin emerged as a singular and exceptionally gifted musician whose abilities far outstripped the opportunities he received to document them on record.