From Hawthorne, California, home of the Beach Boys, Emitt Rhodes is one of the most underappreciated talents in rock’n’roll. He started his career in a group called the Palace Guard and later went on to form The Merry-Go-Round. The Merry-Go-Round had a great baroque rock. When the group disbanded, Emitt set up a studio in his parents’ garage and produced one of the best albums of the 70s. On the self-titled solo debut, you can hear the Beatles/Paul McCartney influence.
Even more impressive, he wrote all the songs himself, played all the instruments and did all the vocals. His first album was a critical success – Billboard called Rhodes "one of the finest artists on the music scene today" and later called his first album one of the "best albums of the decade". The album reached number 29 on the Billboard charts. He had a minor hit with the song “Fresh as a Daisy.” His follow up albums, although they had great tunes, weren’t quite as good as his first.
Sadly, he had signed a record contract that called for two albums a year. Since he did everything himself, and was a perfectionist, he couldn’t keep up the pace and was sued by his own record company. He ended up broke, broken and depressed. He never produced another record for release.
Today, he is a recluse. Divorced. Suffering from diabetes, he spends his time reading physics and mathematic textbooks and recording songs in the same garage he did his three albums. He supposedly has hundreds of tunes recorded, but who knows if they’ll ever see the light day.
It’s a sad story. But the music he recorded, like the best Beatles music, still stands up today. ABC/Dunhill has released a retrospective of his career. His stuff still sounds amazing, It is worth checking out.
