Emitt Rhodes fans are still coming forward with their
memories … as well as making new discoveries of their own along the way. (The “One Man Beatles” documentary in
particular seems to have sparked quite a bit of interest.)
Here are a few more comments that we have received
since the weekend …
Hi Kent,
It’s so nice to see so much coverage of Emitt Rhodes on
FH.
As has been said, it’s a shame more people didn’t know about
him. At least one of the Sirius XM Volume station talk shows spent time
on him last week. Of course, why does everyone pay attention once they’re
dead?! Same with Peter Green. In fact, one of the hosts today said
they’d never be talking about Green if he hadn’t died. What a sad
admission. They will spend hours on Bieber or Minaj and other barely
talented people that make “music” but amazingly talented artists get ignored
until they’re gone.
I seem to be attracted to “lost causes” for some reason. I’m a
huge Tim Hardin fan and a similarly sad demise accompanied him, although he
died much younger and didn’t lose too many years to make music like
Rhodes. More sad stories about Paul Kossoff and Laura Nyro also come to
mind. Where’s the Hardin documentary?
I was so happy to watch the “One Man Beatles” doc. I know
it is sad but I had never seen the man, or knew what he was up to in recent years.
And how great that a couple of fans went to search him out. (Reminds me
“Searching For Sugarman”, another great story of someone who made some great
music way back and then went forgotten. However, the silver lining for
him is that his music was revered years later in South Africa and he got to
play there. This is a highly recommended documentary).
It seems odd that Rhodes seems bemused by the people visiting
him. It’s like he had no idea that people love his music but he had to
know, based on others that had tried to reach him. He seems slightly sad
and yet has a sense of humor about it all. The question I never heard
asked (or answered) is what was he doing for the last 40 years? What
caused him to disappear and yet he seemed to be writing music all along?
I know the record company screwed him over and he had to be crushed and bitter
about that, for sure. But still, what did he do over the last 40 years?
His 2016 album is good and it was a thrill to hear that he was back ... but weren’t
we all hoping for more?! The album cover is hard to look at, as it looks
like he's crying. Sheesh! Whose idea was that?
Also, what happened to his family? He mentions two wives
rather derogatorily but what went on there and with his kids? I know it’s
none of our business, ultimately, but there are pictures in the documentary of
him with wives and children and they are happy images. What
happened? Are the wives around to talk to?
The “One Man Beatles” documentary is enlightening in many ways
but also raises all of these questions. He clearly seems like a
melancholy, fragile person but he didn’t seem that way fronting the Merry Go
Round or on his solo albums. Oh well, maybe more info will come
out. The question of “are there more songs in his house somewhere?” is
compelling, to say the lease.
The “One Man Beatles” thing is an unfortunate label, I
think. It diminishes his talents to a soundalike, which he was clearly
not. He had a McCartney-esque style on the first album and catchy
melodies, but I think labelling him that way isn’t doing him justice.
Maybe that bothered him, too?
I first heard him on my AM radio in NH as I was tuning in WKBW
from Buffalo, whose late night signal reached us. They were playing this
guy and I believe it was “Fresh As A Daisy” and I’m guessing I heard it from
Chicago, too, as that signal got to us sometimes. I bought the first
album and loved it all, like everyone else.
Has there ever been someone so talented who disappeared for 40
years and then came back with new music? What a story. It is so
very sad that he has died. It seems like some spark was needed for years
that he just couldn’t find or didn’t come to him. RIP Emitt!!
JC
The
impression I got from the documentary was that his first wife left him and took
both his boys with her … and they had no further contact with him. You’ve really got to wonder what fueled that
break-up. He had a daughter with his
second wife, but it sounds like they’re estranged as well. One can only hope ALL of his extended family
came to say goodbye last week … I never heard anymore regarding any kind of
funeral arrangements. (Of course it
wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that one of Emitt’s last wishes was to
be buried right there in the garage!!!
After all, that’s where he spent virtually ALL of his time the past
forty years!)
If
you check out the Flipside interview we ran on Sunday, I think he was always
sorta quirky … but that’s a whole lot cuter when you’re 22 years old than when
you’re 70 … and you’ve spent (wasted) most of your life in a deep
depression. Still, I know I’ll watch the
documentary again, if only to see if I can extract anything new out of it that
will make me feel better about Emitt’s career.
I
totally agree that “One Man Beatles” is about the WORST title you could give
this thing … it says absolutely NOTHING about the man and his own creativity
and musical output. (Yes, there were
comparisons to McCartney after that first Dunhill album was released … but how
could there not be? BOTH artists played
all the instruments on their albums that year … and there were vocal
similarities, too. But that really was
the extent of it. The rest of Emitt’s work stands on its own. Honestly, now that he’s gone, I wish they
would re-edit the film to include more of the final details … and certainly
more music … there’s barely any in the film … another 30 minutes could EASILY
be added to showcase more of Emitt’s talent.
(And then change the name of the damn thing to something much more
appropriate and acknowledging.) kk
I ran this Emitt Rhodes story on the Illinois Rock & Roll Music
Archives page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/870729336712789/ on July 21, as he is
originally from Decatur.
Ken Voss
I don’t know why, but for some reason I believed Emitt
Rhodes was living in Cleveland in the ‘80’s … so much so that at one point, a
friend and I were going to drive down there to see if we could find him! (We were both enormous fans of his music …
and even by the early ‘80’s were already wondering where he … and his music had
gone.) Turns out he never left
Hawthorne, California, the whole time.
(Or even the same house, for that matter!!!)
If Illinois can lay some small claim on Emitt, then I
say so be it. (His family moved to
Hawthorne when he was just five!)
This is just another GREAT entry into Ken’s Illinois
Rock And Roll Music Archives site. He
was kind enough to allow us to reprint it here …
Emitt Rhodes
Emitt Rhodes has been
credited as one of the pioneers in evolving the garage rock culture of the ‘60s
into the power pop genre that became vogue in the early ‘70s. Sadly, he’s another musician that has passed,
apparently having died in his sleep as he was found Sunday morning (7/19/20) at
his home in Hawthorne, California.
Rhodes was originally
from Decatur, Illinois, although there is little musical history that ties him
to the state. By the time he was 14, he was living in Los Angeles where he put
together a band called the Emeral (sometimes incorrectly noted as the Emeralds.) With disputes among the teenagers, the band
didn’t last long. Evolving from that came the Palace Guard. Costumed in
military-themed red coats as if they were members of the Queen’s Guard, by
mid-’65 they enjoyed an extended residency at the Hullabaloo Club on Sunset
Strip. Building a reputation, they released a half dozen singles in 1965-66,
scoring a regional hit with “Falling Sugar.” Here they are performing the song
on the TV show “Where the Action Is” https://youtu.be/3VWoRQRaWX4.
Already tired of the
themed wardrobe and wanting to progress into a more serious vein, Rhodes split
from the Palace Guard, forming the Merry-Go-Round. With his high school friend
Gary Kato, they started rehearsing in the Rhodes family garage. By mid-’66, the
lineup was complete, including bassist Bill Rinehart from the Leaves and
drummer Joel Larson who had worked with the Grass Roots and Gene Clark.
Signing with A&M,
their debut single “Live” https://youtu.be/F5RUXIt5U went on to hit the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #67. A follow up also cracked the Top
100. The success caused the label to rush out an album, although with
hindsight, Rhodes said was an unfinished project.
Rhodes disbanded
Merry-Go-Round in 1969 and began working on solo material. A&M gave Rhodes
another shot. The label released an album featuring Rhodes’ early solo masters
called The American
Dream in 1970. Again, Rhodes felt the project unfinished.
Certainly, A&M must have felt the same, dropping him after that release.
His first proper solo
album, which he recorded and mixed entirely on his own, was 1970’s Emitt Rhodes. “When I recorded Emitt Rhodes, I was basically investing
in myself,” Rhodes told Paul Myers in 2015 for Mojo magazine. “That was kinda
how I saw it. I spent any money that I made from making the records with the
record company to buy the equipment that I used to make my own records.” The
album climbed to #29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
But he would live to
regret the contract he signed with ABC/Dunhill.
While the label released 1971’s Mirror and
1973’s Farewell to
Paradise, they then turned around and sued Rhodes for not
fulfilling his contractual obligation to record two albums each year. “It was a
Herculean task and it was impossible for me to do,” he said in the Mojo interview. As a result, he walked
away from his career as a recording artist. “There were lawsuits and lawyers
and I wasn’t having any fun anymore. That’s it. Simple as that. I worked really
hard and there was no reward.”
Rhodes stopped
performing. And while he was out of the public eye, he was still very much
involved in the music industry as a recording engineer and producer for Elektra
Records.
Still recording music,
he continued to have bad luck with record labels. He was working on a solo
album for Elektra when his A&R representative was fired and the project was
shelved. In 2000, he completed an album for the Rocktopia label, but the label
shut down before it was released. Much of the time in the 80’s and 90’s was spent
working in his own studio, developing other acts and becoming known for his
unique self-recording techniques that several groups have credited as
influential in their music.
In 2009, Italian
director Cosimo Messeri shot a documentary movie about Rhodes’ trials and
tribulations titled The One Man Beatles. It was selected for inclusion in the
International Rome Film Festival and nominated for the David de Donatello Award
as Best Documentary of 2010.
Rhodes did finally
resurface with the album Rainbow Ends
in 2016, although generally remained elusive and reclusive.
His legacy is
remembered by various compilation albums of early psychedelic garage rock, with
his solo material going down in music annals as influential in the evolution of
power pop.
For the “whole story”
on Emitt Rhodes, check out http://emittrhodesmusic.net/emittstory.html
Discography
THE PALACE GUARD
1965 Summertime Game b/w Little People
(Orange-Empire OE 9165-7/8)
1965 All Night Long b/w Playgirl (Orange-Empire
OE-331)
1965 A Girl You Can Depend On b/w If You Need Me
(Orange-Empire OE-332)
1966 Saturday’s Child b/w Party Lights (Parkway
P-111)
1966 Calliope b/w Greed (Parkway P-124)
1966 Falling Sugar b/w Oh Blue (The Way I Feel Tonight)
(Orange-Empire OE-400/401)
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
1967 The Merry-Go-Round (A&M 4132)
EMITT RHODES
1970 The American Dream (A&M 4254)
1970 Emitt Rhodes (ABC/Dunhill 50089)
1971 Mirror (ABC/Dunhill 50111)
1973 Farewell to Paradise (ABC/Dunhill 50122)
2016 Rainbow Ends (Omnivore OV-183)
*****************************************************
1970: July 31st – NBC News Anchor Chet Huntley retires from full-time broadcasting. (Good Night, Chet.)
