C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

"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

I am starting to suffer from a little bit of withdrawal now that the well of internet Emitt ephemera seems to be running dry (Note to budo jeru, I never considered myself the biggest fan or fanboy, but something about the highly functional under-achieving mild depressive I can relate to for some reason)

FB says he had been planning to marry his fiancée of a decade after teh COVID-19.

Also Bangles page reposted Debbi's post and one of the first responses was by F.J. McMahon.

wow that's fucking way cool !

Thought it might be somebody with the same name but it was totally him.

Wait, who is FJ McMahon?

You never heard Spirit of the Golden Juice? One-off 1969 Vietnam-vet lost psych/folk or folk/psych cratedigger classic.

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

Um, HI DERE!

i can't believe FJ mcmahon is just on facebook

Ha, yeah exactly

anyway

a little bit of withdrawal now that the well of internet Emitt ephemera seems to be running dry

i still haven't made it through everything you've shared / referenced here, so perhaps you can share my anticipation vicariously

Thanks. I found one more thing of interest. May try to wait a beat before posting.

Will say one thing though: depressive or no-depressive, guy always had great hair.

I'm back. I can't help it.
(He can't help it, James Redd can't help it)

Listening to the tribute on SiriusXM Volume West. Michael Des Barres compared Emitt to Nick Drake, fair enough. Chris Price, who produced his last album telling interesting stories about how he met Emitt and about Emitt's day job at Mike Nesmith's Elektra studio where among other things he engineered Judee Sill's third and last and unfinished for a few decades album.

Keep getting this Chris Price mixed up with Chris Thomas and Bill Price.