BANGOR, Maine — Crouched with his Hasselblad camera near the front-row seats at the old Bangor auditorium, Orlando Frati waited for country music superstar Porter Wagoner to take the stage. It was sometime in the mid-1960s, and Frati, a country music fan, had smooth-talked his way into the auditorium without buying a ticket, intending to add to his growing collection of celebrity photographs.
“I went over with the idea of taking some pictures of Porter Wagoner,” Frati, 84, recalled in a recent conversation.
But first, there was a warm-up act for the wildly popular, sequin-suited, pompadoured Wagoner. The warm-up singer was a young woman, a relative newcomer to the country scene, whose name was unfamiliar to Frati and most others in the restless audience.
Dolly Parton stepped out into the lights. In her early 20s, she was wearing a short, high-necked, pale blue chiffon dress and carrying a big Grammer guitar, built in Nashville. Her pale blond hair was piled high. She smiled sweetly into the crowd, strummed a few chords and played a short set that drew a storm of applause.
Frati, busy with his camera, knew he was witnessing something special.
“I thought to myself, boy, that is some gal,” he said with a laugh. “I thought, she is going to be a star.”
Parton, who partnered with Wagoner on stage for many years and went on to develop a powerful career of her own, is now 70 and a country-pop megastar in her own right. She will return to Bangor on Saturday, June 18, for a concert at the Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion.
Frati, still a fan, hopes to be on hand for an autograph.
“I can’t believe it took her over 30 years to come back,” he said.
Frati is well known in Bangor these days as the second-generation proprietor of the Orlando Frati Pawn Shop on State Street. The business, which began as a watch and jewelry repair shop, was started by his father, Enrico Frati, back in the 1930s.
Originally located in the Pickering Square area, the shop moved to its current location — the longtime former home of the WABI radio station — in the 1960s when urban renewal resulted in the demolition of the old neighborhood near Kenduskeag Stream. Now Orlando Frati’s son, also named Orlando, has taken over the business.
The small pawn shop is neatly stocked with jewelry, firearms, power tools, musical instruments and other items brought in by folks needing some quick cash. Frati stepped into the back room and came back with a few manilla folders stuffed with old photographs.
“I took pictures of all the different entertainers who came to town,” he said, spreading his photos on the glass top of a display case.
Some are in color, and some are in black-and-white.
There’s the singing cowboy, Gene Autry, and his “wonder horse,” Champion, along with Autry’s musical backup band. Hank Snow, Merle Haggard and Freddie Hart are represented, all shockingly young and decked out in spangled, appliqued cowboy suits and stack-heeled boots. There’s a moody, very early shot of Johnny Cash, maybe in his 20s, and a later one, personally autographed to Frati when Cash came back to Bangor in the 1970s.
There’s a beautiful closeup of June Carter, a member of the highly successful Carter Family, who went on to marry Johnny Cash.
Local talent is there, too, including several professionally posed shots of Fort Fairfield native Dick Curless and his signature eyepatch. Harold John Breau of Old Town, better known as Hal Lone Pine, is shown broadcasting live with his Lone Pine Mountaineers over the WABI soundwaves.
“The WABI studios were right upstairs in this building,” Frati said.
Frati started using a camera as a youngster, joining the photography club at the former Garland Street School (now William S. Cohen Middle School) when he was in ninth grade. Before the year was out, he was asked to photograph the graduating class for the high school yearbook.
He continued to develop his hobby until his own graduation in 1951, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. There, he received professional training in photography in preparation for deployment to Korea.
“But then we signed a peace treaty,” he said, so instead of shipping out, he fulfilled his service commitment at Fort Riley in Kansas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Returning to Bangor after he was discharged, he stepped into the family business. But he also used his photography skills to work as a wedding photographer, and he decided to document the country musicians who came to Bangor on their national tours. He never bought a ticket to their shows.
“They all knew me down there [at the auditorium],” he said. “I had a big camera with a professional flash. … They all knew I was a local guy. I had no difficulty getting in.”
He often sent prints to the performers, he said, pulling an old envelope from the stack of photos. Inside was a handwritten note: “Dear Mr. Frati, Thank you for sending us the picture of John. We have had it framed and have it hanging in the office. Sincerely, June and Johnny Cash.”
Frati is clearly proud of this collection of photos, so full of music, memories and history. But his favorite is the large, color print of young Parton, her blue skirt swishing above her knees, a triangular guitar pick in the hand of her outstretched arm, her 1000-watt smile beaming into the audience as she strums out a chord on the Grammer.
“I kept this print, thinking she might come back to Bangor someday,” he said. “Now, I’m going to get her to sign it.”
He hasn’t purchased a ticket to the upcoming show.
“I never bought a ticket yet,” he said, mischievously, “and I’m not going to buy a ticket now.”
He doesn’t have a plan. But, somehow, Frati hopes to once again make his way to the foot of the stage and, this time, meet the star he last saw when she was just starting out on her long journey to fame.
