C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

i think the title probably says more about how his biggest fans perceive him. i've known a handful of beatles worshippers who are so tragically devout that it's almost like nothing else will do and acts like emmitt rhodes, badfinger, and ELO just kind of fill this void for them.

never any love for key's "fit me in" though

Some fun promo videos of his popping up on Twitter:

RIP Emitt Rhodes "Really Wanted You," 1971 promo video. Fare thee well, Mr. Rhodes. Thank you for all the great music. pic.twitter.com/K8JQa9wjiY

— Nikki Kreuzer (@NikkiKreuzer) July 19, 2020

RIP Emitt Rhodes. Heres's a 1971 promo film for Birthday Lady, somewhat surprisingly filmed at Bristol Temple Meads. The full thing is here https://t.co/Wg2ntgBjG9 and here's a promo for Really Wanted You also filmed at BTM https://t.co/u5ETQoEe4Q pic.twitter.com/y0jXOAns89

— Birmingham 81 (@Birmingham_81) July 19, 2020

Some fun video promos of his popping up on Twitter:

RIP Emitt Rhodes "Really Wanted You," 1971 promo video. Fare thee well, Mr. Rhodes. Thank you for all the great music. pic.twitter.com/K8JQa9wjiY

— Nikki Kreuzer (@NikkiKreuzer) July 19, 2020

RIP Emitt Rhodes. Heres's a 1971 promo film for Birthday Lady, somewhat surprisingly filmed at Bristol Temple Meads. The full thing is here https://t.co/Wg2ntgBjG9 and here's a promo for Really Wanted You also filmed at BTM https://t.co/u5ETQoEe4Q pic.twitter.com/y0jXOAns89

— Birmingham 81 (@Birmingham_81) July 19, 2020

Cool.

Never cared about Counting Crows, but I have a newfound fondness for their bass player for his work with Emitt.

The doc is kind of depressing and Emitt was depressed and yet the older Emitt doesn’t seem like a betrayal of the younger one, rather a natural extension thereof and there is something eminently lovable about his withdrawn yet warm presence, if I may allow myself to go there.

i think the title probably says more about how his biggest fans perceive him. i've known a handful of beatles worshippers who are so tragically devout that it's almost like nothing else will do and acts like emmitt rhodes, badfinger, and ELO just kind of fill this void for them.

I mean some Beatles fans might as well be Zappa or Dead fans, they way they go on.

Personnel
Emitt Rhodes: All instruments and voices.

Keith Olsen is an interesting interview – “Where’s the charm?” he asks when told that Emitt was working with other musicians after 40 years in an actual studio.

I think I expected that documentary to be more depressing than it was. Rhodes is a depressive but not smotheringly so. And hey, he did do an album, even if it’s hard for me to reconcile the “To Make You Feel My Love”-esque vibe of that material with anything he did earlier in his career.

Right, exactly.

Keith Olsen is an interesting interview – “Where’s the charm?” he asks when told that Emitt was working with other musicians after 40 years in an actual studio.

https://tapeop.com/interviews/33/keith-olsen/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8reWSwi_gFA

The first solo record never gets old for me. I should give Mirror more of a chance.

If it hasn’t been done yet, somebody should interview Keith Olsen about Curt Boettcher before he kicks the bucket too. Boettcher worked on Rhodes’ S/T.

Olsen just died in March unfortunately.

goddammit

"Mirror" is as good as the first album, in my opinion, a bit less twinkly but that's a good thing.

I was finally listening to Mirror as a separate entity within the box last night. Sounded good. Saw that about Keith Olsen last night, RIP. He was so good in the doc. He was kind of super-grouchy about the whole thing but you could clearly see the affection there, or so I imagined.

I didn't realize (until reading about him after the documentary) that Olsen also played bass on The Music Machine's "Talk Talk" and that first album.

Me neither.

This ipre-Music Machine tidbit is interesting too, from his NYT obit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/arts/music/keith-olsen-dies.html

He studied music at the University of Minnesota but left to play bass in different bands and toured with the singer Gale Garnett before joining the Music Machine

I guess what is appealing here is the kind of classic sitcom love/hate/Ernie/Bert/Felix/Oscar duality here between a world-class producer/ engineer and an idiosyncratic DIY depressive

Who were joined at the hip for a few minutes there in some fashion. "Where's the charm?" indeed.

Adding to the Fleetwood Mac connections, Richard Dashut worked w/Olsen on Farewell To Paradise.

...which I'm spinning rn, and I must say whenever Rhodes isn't being a surprisingly good soulboi, these acoustic-based tracks seriously look ahead to the s/t Mac LP. FWIW, Olsen/Dashut we're working on Buckingham-Nicks at roughly the same time.

Has this been mentioned yet?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/arts/music/emitt-rhodes-singer-dies.html

He had worked as a staff producer for the Elektra label, producing an album for the Canadian performer Bim and a 1976 novelty single by the actor and comedian Gabe Kaplan, “Up Your Nose” — a catchphrase from Mr. Kaplan’s hit TV show, “Welcome Back, Kotter.”

https://www.facebook.com/justinfielding/videos/10157640042786680

https://www.facebook.com/alexjulesHELLO/videos/10110075241067939

Wow. Love seeing/hearing him singing along with that piano

Yeah, that was really sweet.

He appeared on the David Frost Show on January 20th, 1972... along with Joseph Bologna and Vittorio De Sica!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1763979/

Feel like I just saw some of that, maybe it's in the doc?

Other relatively recent ER recordings out there, his rendition of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" for a Bee Gees tribute, recording of "Time Will Show the Wiser" with Iain Matthews on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Vernier_Band_Sessions.

I guess I posted video of him strumming guitar for that Bee Gees thing yesterday.

Truth be told I don’t usually go for the one man band thing, for one thing in the case of Macca I’d prefer if he had somebody named Ringo or Jim on drums, and I resisted it in Emitt’s case quite a bit, but if that’s the way he wanted to go than I’ll have to take it, ultimately sounds pretty good. Splits the difference between Elliott Smith and Prince in their one man band incarnations.

i briefly thought a poll along the lines of “best album where every part is performed by a single person” would be a good idea until i remembered this place is overrun by the sort of people who would ruin the fun by voting exclusively for klaus schulze records or something

No doubt.

anyway your posts since the revive have been a pleasure and frequently otm, thanks James

Thanks! But listening to the Vic Damone version of “Farewell to Paradise” right now, let’s see how we all feel after I get through that.

One list thing before for now. Found this old school fan page that has some good photos on it. Enjoy! http://www.emittrhodesmusic.net/

Before I go for now.

That site has photos of The Merry Go Round performing - and competing! -on The Dating Game, which I don't think has been mentioned on this thread.

Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_Q2YNHFug

Emitt in the center, Joel Larson over on the right.

...and on the left is Rick Dey, who co-wrote "Just Like Me" by Paul Revere, and who later died in the '70s by overdosing on nitrous whippits at a party.

Thanks. Btw you were right about the Bangles/Richard Thompson collabos, those versions are different from what was released on the album.

This playlist has pretty much everything Emitt did, although not “Listen, Listen” for some reason, which doesn’t seem to be on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/user/toddrawson/playlist/6FzdMIavNLfZYH7zKt0DTn?si=p7wTRpyMT1y-PkJmpx-k-w

There was a comp called Listen, Listen that had the Merry-Go-Round album, singles-only stuff like "Listen, Listen" and "Missing You" along with what I think of as the 0th Emitt album, the Wrecking Crew stuff released as The American Dream, but that comp didn't seem to make it to the streamscape.

yes, put out by the great joe foster's rev-ola label.

I don't have anything by him, but I must have flipped past this album a million times in 99-cent bins in the late-'70s/early-'80s. One of many I stupidly passed over.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Emitt-Rhodes_Mirror.jpg