After the album’s release, he scrapped all planned public performances including an appearance at South by Southwest. It would be Rhodes’ last musical statement. Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and studio wiz Jon Brion contributed guitar solos Susanna Hoffs and Aimee Mann provided backing vocals.
The resulting album, 2016’s “Rainbow Ends,” was a mature mix of songwriting that stands with his original trilogy of albums. Price convinced Rhodes to record them in the garage with the help from a few guest musicians. “Each had a song title with multiple revisions of lyrics and sometimes a demo tape.”
“I showed up at his house and he had all these manila envelopes laid out in his room,” recalls Price. One day, after half a decade of friendship, Rhodes revealed a collection of songs he had written. The two bonded quickly but rarely discussed music. Producer Chris Price was 23 years old in 2007 when he was asked by a friend to check in on the reclusive Rhodes, a man he idolized but had never met.
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The exposure helped introduce him to a new generation of pop fanatics including songsmiths Mac DeMarco and Sufjan Stevens, at a time when his albums were out of print and nearly forgotten. In 2001, his song “Lullaby” appeared on the soundtrack of Wes Anderson’s film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” nestled between Bob Dylan and the Clash. There were numerous attempts at releasing new songs, but the fickleness of the music industry coupled with Rhodes’ apprehension led to an interminable drought between releases. Rather than let the quality of his work diminish in order to meet deadlines, he locked up the studio and let the lawyers sort out who was owed what. Rhodes was burned out by the expectations.
By the end of the decade, Rhodes quit, leaving both the Merry-Go-Round and the Palace Guard to be memorialized on Lenny Kaye’s exhaustive psychedelic rock compilation “Nuggets.” Both tunes charted in the Billboard Hot 100 but it wasn’t enough to keep the band going. Songs from their self-titled 1967 debut like “You’re a Very Lovely Woman” and “Live” are three-minute slices of twangy guitar rock and tight harmonies but with a mellower approach than most of the manic, amphetamine-fueled Britons competing for airplay. He eventually joined the short-lived Merry-Go-Round as vocalist and guitarist, sparing himself the task of dragging his drum set from the South Bay to Hollywood every weekend.Ĭlad in ruffles and velour, the Merry-Go-Round encapsulated a West Coast perspective on the British Invasion. Rhodes' initial breakthrough was as the drummer for the Palace Guard, a straightforward, seven-piece garage band that was a mainstay of the mid-1960s LA miniskirt and go-go boot circuit. By the time Rhodes entered Hawthorne High School (alma mater of the Beach Boys’ Wilson brothers, Redd Kross’ McDonald brothers and Tyler, the Creator), he was gigging regularly in and around the Sunset Strip. His family packed up for Hawthorne when he was 5, his father one of thousands lured to the West Coast by the aerospace industry. Rhodes was born in Decatur, Ill., on Feb. From 1970 to 1973, he released three, but his failure to adhere to his label’s demand for more product resulted in a four-decade break between his third and fourth albums. In exchange, Rhodes was to churn out two albums per year. Rhodes’ unique addition was a garage recording studio initially funded by an advance from Dunhill Records in 1969. Riding the technological cusp, Rhodes recorded all of his albums from home, an early proponent of the DIY aesthetic.Īmid the hundreds of tract homes in Hawthorne, Emitt Rhodes’ parents’ two-bedroom house is just another relic of 1950s suburbia, one of many unspectacular rectangular lots that have been personalized by generations of restless tenants. He was neither a troubadour nor a rocker but a kid from the Los Angeles suburbs with an innate sense for songwriting and the technical knowledge to get it all done himself. The singer-songwriter was far from a household name, but his three early-'70s solo albums, a mix of Harry Nilsson-style innocence and Paul McCartney-esque homespun introspection, are coveted by those who prize post-Beatles pop music.
His death was announced by his friend and producer Chris Price. Emitt Rhodes, the pioneering 1970s one-man power-pop band who retreated into self-imposed silence before resurfacing 43 years later with a star-studded album, died Sunday in his sleep.
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