Best-selling author Mitch Albom talks about 'The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto' and how we are all in a band

NEW YORK -- Frankie Presto. All of the biggest names in the music business and throughout Hollywood seem to know who he is, but you probably don't know him just yet. Why? Because he was invented by best-selling author Mitch Albom. His newest book, "The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto" explores the life and death of the musician and how his life has impacted everyone he knows. Think "Forest Gump" but on a musical level.

"He can change somebody's fate, and whenever he does that the string turns blue and it's kind of used up and it goes from six, to five, to four, to three, and you see all the people that he's influenced over the course of his life," Albom said.

Albom has put "Frankie Presto" into the real world of music. He got real world musicians to allow him to write in their voice about their experiences with his character. At times you forget that this is a character in a book. In fact, in a video to promote the book, musicians like Burt Bacharach, Ingrid Michaelson, Tony Bennet, and Darlene Love just to name a few to talk about their experiences with "Frankie Presto".

This novel is more than just a book. It is an immersive experience. There is even a musical companion that goes along with the book so that you can listen to the music and really know the world of "Frankie Presto".

"Some of them ended up recording songs that were the fictional songs that are in the book that they then wrote and became real songs. So we now have a soundtrack album that goes with it and then they recorded these videos that pretend, 'Oh, I remember Frankie, it's so sad that he's gone and he's so great.' And so you see all this stuff that's out there now on the internet and on iTunes and all that and it's as if Frankie Presto was really real, but it's also the point of the book that you can affect one another with your music or your talent in more ways than you realize," Albom said.

Another major theme of the book is that we are all in a band, in fact several bands of people and groups throughout our lifetime. That band can be your family, your coworkers, your groups of friends from various times in your life, the book gets you to examine what part you are playing in each of those "bands".

Albom prides himself on the fact that his book is fictional yet historically accurate to the time period. In fact, this is the first time he's ever had to hire a full-time researcher to fact check and find out details so that he could accurately write about the different musical studios and even things like how someone would get backstage at Woodstock.

"The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto" is online and in bookstores now along with the musical companion.