Frank Cotolo was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1950. He has been involved with music and the music industry one way or another for all of his adult life.
He began composing music almost as soon as he learned how to play his first instrument, the guitar. His early musical influences were not rock and roll, but classical, film scores and the music of the '20s, '30s and '40s, including music by Mozart, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and others. In the late '50s and early '60s he became enamored with production and studied the recordings of Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and George Martin. His tastes varied from Antonio Carlos Jobim to The Beatles and from Anthony Newley to The Kinks.
In the '60s he started a band and remained in the same rock-oriented group with only one member change for almost a decade. They played high-school dances, then bars, frat parties and college auditoriums. Frank teamed up with lyricist/writer James Chakedis in the early '70s and the two wrote hundreds of songs together, as well as the music for an Off-Broadway play and a documentary. They began their own music publishing firm and built a recording studio to produce their own demos. A single album, "The Hard Guys", was recorded by Frank and James along with two friends, bassist Vince Coratello and percussionist Larry Michelich, as an independent band called DADA. It pushed the artistic envelope in it's day but was a commercial failure, and thus a turning point in Frank's career.
In 1978 Cotolo left New York for Hollywood. Hooking up with legendary personality Wolfman Jack, Frank began a decade-long working relationship with the groundbreaking radio-oriented artist. Frank became The Wolfman's full-time writer (for radio, TV and stage shows) as well as playing the part of "Mars," The Wolfman's radio sidekick. With The Wolfman, Frank wrote, performed on and sometimes produced radio programs heard around the world.
It wasn't until the 1990s when Frank, who left California for Pennsylvania, by way of Nashville, got back into music regularly. He developed Cool Noise Studios at his home and set out to write and produce his own music with total artistic freedom as his guide. Living in the boondocks, Frank had little help from other musicians, so his ability to play many instruments, coupled with the wonders of 90s recording technology, gave him the opportunity to unleash his lush tastes onto tape. Along the way he produced the first-ever CD for a comic book and a successful cassette album of poetry readings and random music.Since renewing his musical endeavors, Cotolo has created a vast catalog of recordings. Working alone or with help from his wife, Kristen, and a cadre of friends, old and new, he continues to produce music with no loyalty to genre or encumbered by current fads.
