Essay: Joe Coco / Luminarios Music, BMI / The Performance Company
Professor of Art History - Studio - Rock ‘n Rap Courses Montclair State & Centenary University, NJ

Album: TWO HEARTS Lin& John Franklin Ⓟ 2022 Franklin Records FR#025 July 6, 2022
Genre: Americana; 8 Songs - All Selections © 2022 John & Lin Franklin Franklin Music, BMI

The album TWO HEARTS is a testament to Lin & John Franklin’s endurance in marriage and professional music careers. Their songs read like a guide for all those mystified by what it takes to remain together in love and creative passion. Lin’s name precedes John’s, an important clue in understanding how a woman’s perspective in these songs tempers the messages in this collection. This subtle, non-traditional placement underscores the feminine sensibilities that strengthen their resolve as partners. It is a reminder in the 21st Century that machismo often destroys what a man aspires to. Revolving thru many band incarnations, they have evolved in their musical pursuits and family intact. Such resolve illustrates how adversity has tempered their metal, that circumstances must never rule love.

These songs are arranged with an Americana feel that match the strongest values of Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western cultures of the eastern United States. Geography also places the listener at the center of a second paradigm in the record, identity. Yankee Son, track four, addresses such perfectly. John Franklin’s family settled in Georgia in the early 1700s. John’s father left his Georgia farm to serve in the Philippines, settling in Philadelphia. Where John and Lin were born, John married into the Zapf family, owners of the famous music store in ‘the city of brotherly love. John fulfilled his father's dream to return to the South from Bucks County – PA, unifying not only familial roots. The modern sensibilities of this couple effectively unite musical forms of country and folk with their mature singer-songwriter styles. This subtle metaphor lends a healing message to those whose vow is weak, where so many relationships are casualties in today’s fractious America.

One Step At A Time aptly sets the tone for the album, with Lin’s vocal leading the first song.  Throwing herself “body and soul into life and love,” Violin and peddle-steel plaintively evoke the understanding she summons, distilled into two wizened short verses, hitched to a two-line chorus - a guide through the rest of the album.  Such surrender surrounds Two Hearts, as first loves and first loss.  But this first love dies, and the mettle is tested through mortal loss.  I have yet to hear a mandolin portray such grief, matched so well to voice and subject.  This is what places Americana perfectly in Franklin’s music, as they and their band are emblematic inhabitants of such authentic sound.