Frank’s Barber Shop isn’t owned by Frank. That’s because Paul Collins bought it from Frank back in 1970. The shop changed locations eventually, but the old-school vibe still infuses the new spot on Northampton’s out-of-the-way Bradford Street. That might not seem like news, exactly, but as I recently inhabited Collins’ chair for an ear-lowering, I realized just why visiting Frank’s—just one barbering outpost of many in the Valley where the scent of the past still lingers—is such a worthwhile experience.
It’s important to establish one thing right away: places like Frank’s existed long before the horrifying new term “retrosexual” arrived, and will do so long after the trend-suckers have exhausted the well of numbskull articles about the glories of a Tom Collins and learning to be a cad. When the hipsters set out to pillage the world’s dwindling stocks of wood-grain pen knives, cuff links and well-worn golf tees, places like Frank’s will likely remain off their radar.
As a Southerner, I grew up making regular visits to barber shops where the choice of reading material ran all the way from Field & Stream to Outdoor Life. The color of manhood was pine-panel brown with safety orange accents, and the choice of haircuts was short, shortest or buff ‘n’ shine. The infusing of a new cut with essence de Marlboro Reds came free of charge.
Frank’s, thankfully, offers a wider palette in the decor department than those deer camp cutting outposts. A drink-vending machine of a modest and old-fashioned sort inhabits the corner. Baseball memorabilia adorns the walls, even an old Ted Williams sign advertising Maine’s old-school Moxie Cola. The obligatory “unbreakable” comb display hangs beside the mirror, and near it is a shelf full of bottled styptic fluid.
The latter is an important clue to the pedigree of any proper barber shop, hailing as it does from the days when shaving was more a bloodsport than the focus of an escalating hardware design war. Look closely around the two chairs (he has help on Saturdays) in Collins’ shop, and you’ll spot a razor strop or two, the leather tool for refreshing the edge of a straight razor (aka a cut throat).
“I learned with the straight razor,” Collins says. “You had to.” The straight razor is long gone, though, deposed by a modern replaceable-blade equivalent, which he wields with a steady, skilled hand to finish up a haircut in high style.
His years of barbering mean the perfect haircut arrives quickly, but the atmosphere of Frank’s is unhurried all the same. That’s in large part thanks to the non-baseball part of the shop’s ambience. Photos of Collins blowing away with his saxophone also show up on the walls, as do photos of jazz greats.
When I tell him I like to come to Frank’s because the music is so much better than the mediocre pop that assails the unsuspecting in other shops (and grocery stores and gas stations and restaurants), Collins smiles wide. “Yes! I agree!” he says.
At his shop, the play list includes music from the likes of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw—horn-fueled standards played by big bands. Collins tells me about his own endeavors. He’s part of musical projects that hail from another Valley musical scene that exists under the usual radar, far from rock clubs and indie band efforts. Collins plays in a big band scene, part of a surprisingly large network of (mostly) older musicians in the Valley who’ve been playing swing hits for years. They play retirement homes, municipal band shells and community concerts, and they seem to like rehearsing almost as much as they like playing to audiences. They’re also very good at their instruments, because playing those old hits is a demanding pastime.
It’s at places like an old-fashioned barber shop that you catch hints of that other scene, not to mention clues about its intriguing vitality. The old guard, they adapt. Rock and roll didn’t stop them in the ’50s, and they’ve persisted until the online era, when every specialty, every subgenre can thrive like never before.
I ask Collins what station we’re listening to. It turns out that the swank old wooden radio in the corner, just like that replaceable blade straight razor, isn’t what it appears.
“It’s the ’40s,” he says. “On satellite.”
