While we're stewing over steve's latest conundrum, let's all pause a minute and wish a happy 60th birthday to the DIY king Emitt Rhodes. After some success in bands like The Merry-Go-Round, Rhodes got signed to a solo contract, but his label refused to release his first record. So he withdrew, built himself a studio in his parents' garage, and proceeded to make two just-about-perfect albums of early 70's pop. He was the keeper of the flame when the flame appeared to be gone, and he turns 60 today. Happy birthday, Mr. Rhodes!
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13 comments:
Thanks, but if you really loved me, you'd spell my name right. :)
D'oh! Fixed now.
In my defense: the CD is in the car, and there's a foot of snow out there. I was depending on the internets: always a dodgy business. (True: I checked the T's, not the M's. Dope.)
I'm confused. It's one M and two Ts.
Isn't it?
I had two and two first, Sal. I fixed it, and am justly shamed.
I found his albums in the late 70s in the cut-out bins, and I have loved him ever since.
Happy birthday George, too
He's 60?
Oish.
BTW, I took him out to dinner in 1971 when he was playing my old college. Well, I didn't actually take him out to dinner, but I was in the car.
Nice guy, in any case.
Emitt is new to me, but I will buy some of his stuff, this is great.
Trey
Emitt Rhodes was a musical genius. Unfortunately his story of life in the music business is almost as sad as Badfinger's.
He is supposed to be working with a band these days and we might get lucky and see my new stuff from him. In the meantime, checkout the boxset that came out last year and the Merry Go Around compilation cd.
MJ,
That box set is the one that's out in my car, currently under almost 2 feet of snow, worse with drifting.
FWIW, Rhodes is one of those names I saw everywhere but had never heard until John Murphy insisted I must. Thanks, John!
God bless Emitt Rhodes. If he is working with a band these days and we get some new stuff, we will indeed be lucky.
By the way, "Mirror" the album from which the clip is taken, is one of Rhodes' truly awful later albums. There was a big break there. The Merry-Go-Round, "American Dream", and "Emmit Rhodes" are near-perfect albums. But withe "Mirror" he stepped off the cliff (for reasons well written-about on the net). The later albums are rushed, he was depressed, and the creative spirit of Paul McCartney was overridden by the baleful influence of James Taylor.
Wasn't Mirror between ER and American Dream? In which case, I always had the impression he was more burned out and embittered by the time he did American Dream. Regardless, I never thought Mirror was that bad at all.
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