From Sara Lee to Fronk's Girl: A New Name Reflects a Journey of Music, Recovery and Self-Discovery

By Marie Kennedy, The Mountain Times

On a recent Monday evening at Wraptitude in Welches, Sara Lee stood before a small crowd, ukulele in hand, sharing songs and stories.

Dressed in a mushroom-patterned outfit with her hair pulled back, she moved easily between music and conversation. One moment she was singing her own version of "What's Love Got to Do With It." The next, she was fielding a request for a Lyle Lovett song.

The audience laughed often. Some sang along, some even danced. By the end of the evening, it felt less like a concert and more like time spent with a friend.

Soon, those audiences will begin seeing a new name on posters and social media announcements.

Sara is rebranding her music performances under the name Fronk's Girl.

The new stage name honors her late father, whose friends knew him as "Fronk," and reflects a deeply personal journey that has unfolded over the past decade.

"This rebranding is really about bringing together who I am and what I want to represent," Sara said.

Many local residents first came to know Sara and her husband Robert through El Burro Loco, the popular Mexican restaurant they operated on the mountain. Robert was known for his seemingly endless energy, always moving, always working, and rarely sitting still.

Then, in January 2014, everything changed.

Robert suffered a brain bleed caused by an aneurysm that nearly took his life. Friends and neighbors followed his progress closely.

Life afterward looked very different.

As Robert began a long recovery that continues today, Sara found herself balancing the responsibilities of raising their daughter, managing a household ,and becoming her husband's primary caregiver.

"I was just a sea of feelings that I didn't know how to cope with," she said.

During long hours at the hospital, Sara picked up a banjolele Robert had given her years earlier. The small instrument and a songbook that had mostly sat untouched suddenly became lifelines.

"When Rob suffered his brain injury, I spent hours sitting in the hospital," she said. "Music became a way to keep myself sane and a way to keep him tethered to this plane."

Sara filled Robert's hospital room with music. There was always something playing, whether recorded music or her own. What began as a way to endure long days gradually became something much larger.

For Sara, it offered something she had struggled to find elsewhere.

"I have a hard time keeping my mind, body, and spirit in the same place," she said. "When I'm playing music, they have to work together. I'm present. I'm breathing. My nervous system settles down."

The years following Robert's injury brought additional challenges, including grief, recovery, and the process of rebuilding a life that no longer resembled the one she had expected. Through it all, music remained a constant companion.

"Music is meditation for me," she said. "I sing to empty the vessel."

During the COVID-19 shutdown, she devoted countless hours to practicing, refining her technique and teaching herself the technical side of live sound. When public performances resumed, she began appearing more frequently at local venues, community events, farmers markets, and senior living centers.

Looking back, she remembers watching the local band Backup & Push perform on the Wraptitude stage years before she ever imagined herself performing publicly.

"One of these days I'm going to play on a stage like that with a band," she recalled thinking.

Today, she performs as a solo artist and regularly joins Backup & Push, the same long-running Welches string band she once watched from the audience.

She performs an eclectic mix of songs that reflects a lifetime spent collecting music from every corner of the cultural landscape. Folk songs, rock, country, singer-songwriters, and surprising mashups all find their way into her sets.

Sara speaks openly with audiences about family, recovery, music history, and the winding path that brought her to the stage. The conversations between songs have become part of the experience.

For much of her life, she said, she focused on taking care of others and adapting herself to what people expected.

"It wasn't until I joined the band and I was one amongst many," she said. "This is nice."

"When you realize you're wearing masks, they become very heavy," she said.

Recovery, she said, gave her the opportunity to discover who she really was beneath those expectations.

That realization is part of what inspired the move to Fronk's Girl.

The name connects her to the father she admired and the values he embodied: kindness, curiosity, creativity, and generosity.

"I want to be the daughter he deserves," she said.

Today, Sara continues to perform throughout the region, sharing songs, stories, and the life experiences that shaped her. At many of those performances, her husband, Robert, can still be found in the audience.

"My father was my everything," Sara said. "All the things I like most about myself are reflections of him."

Audiences may soon see her new stage name, Fronk's Girl, on posters and social media announcements, but for Sara, the new name is less about reinvention than remembrance.