C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

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.

This interview is great. Clears up a lot of stuff.

The three Bangles/Richard Thompson recordings were an offshoot of the recording sessions shown in the doc which, as C. Grisso/McCain pointed out, were pulled because of litigation. Rainbow Ends was actually recorded a few years later, this time in Emitt's home studio but with outside musicians coming in.

So hopefully Keith Olsen was satisfied charm-wise.

Two videos I cherry-picked off fan page coming up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPHIsrjh84Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcs78yiq_s8

The bandleader on the latter was his flatmate who reported his passing, I think.

The one-two closing punch on the Collected Contiguous Works of titular album closer "Farewell to Paradise" and the non-LP "Tame the Lion" is really strong. Vic Damone version of "Farewell to Paradise" is not bad either. And, sorry if I'm late to the party, but slowly starting to think his lyrics are pretty strong, sometimes seemingly formulaic at first blush, but open closer examination often a cut above.

I kind of want to join the Official Fan Forum, but then maybe
I will feel more guilty about picking off their stuff.

Seems like there is no approval process so I am in!

Now more photos show up in my feed.

join and just keep posting the good stuff here, you have our blessing

Okay, I don't know if you consider a video of photos posted by his friend "good stuff" but here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uarlsqwCtXQ

Think the group is public anyway so you can see everything anyway, just more likely to see stuff as a member and I can chime in if I really feel the need.

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.

This interview is great. Clears up a lot of stuff.

Also, that makes sense re. Rainbow’s End being recorded later – the doc was 2010-11 and the record wasn’t released until 2016 or so. Seems fitting that he got fucked by the industry right to the end.

Re. his lyrics, I agree – one of my favorite tunes of his has always been “Live Til You Die,” but it was only this week that I really listened to the lyrics, poss. with an eye toward his innate unhappiness. In retrospect they feel a bit like him shouting into the abyss:

I have to say the things I feel, oh
I have to feel the things I say
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die
See the sun rising in the east, welcome warm days
Feel my heart flying every time we're alone, babe
Everything around me has been changing so
I can't let go, oh no, no
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die
Feel the earth trembling, have you heard distant thunder?
Everything's moving what's this feeling I'm under
Everything around me has been changing so
I can't let go, oh no, no
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die, you must live till you die
I have to spin the spinning wheel, I have to kneel that way
I have to say the things I feel, I have to feel the things I say
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die

OTM. He even had a way with titles. I finally learned yesterday whilst listening to the Chris Price interview- in the SiriusXM Volume West archive, through Sonos, that the last album is in fact called Rainbow Ends.

Here is some kind of “official” playlist of covers of his songs (it’s owner/creator is listed as Emitt Rhodes), in case we didn’t have it linked here yet.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5rYo0km9q4cWvoN6jRQDqg?si=bPs83hgoRL-Vg8QejiGotg

Maybe Emitt and not Elvis Costello is the real Cole Porter of Rock.

Hope you folks watched "One Man Beatles" before it went off of vimeo because of you.

Am I allowed to say I don’t care for any of his 2000’s work? As noted, it’s great he recorded anything again. And I’m sure I could find some parallels with his earlier work if I squinted hard enough. But honestly I’m not really sure I want to.

That Bangles cover of Live really hits the spot.

I’ve heard that cover many times through listening to the album it is on, but it has been hitting the spot for me these days too.

No worries if you don’t like the latter-day material, it’s sonically so different. I like it much more than most comebacks. Not sure if it is up there with Arthur Alexander, who I mentioned upthread but it’s close.

Meant to say it’s in the running

Lefsetz weighs in

Somebody quoted that whole thing on the fan group, maybe the bass player on Rainbow Ends and several people thanked him for expressing himself so beautifully