Happy Rhodes


Happy Rhodes is an American singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and electronic musician with a four-octave vocal range, releasing 11 albums between 1986 and 2007. In 2016, she came out of retirement and started singing with Security Project, a Peter Gabriel appreciation band, singing lead for 11 live shows in 2016, 19 shows in 2017, and 8 more shows in Spring 2018.

Family

Born Kimberley Tyler Rhodes but called "Happy" since infancy, she legally changed her name to Happy Tyler Rhodes at age 16. Through her father, Vernon H. Rhodes Jr., Rhodes is a distant relative of Cecil Rhodes and her first name "Kimberley" is after the Kimberley diamond mines. Her middle name "Tyler" is after the American actress Mary Tyler Moore, who was a friend of Rhodes' mother, Susan D. Stamper, while both took dance classes at the New York City Ballet. Rhodes' maternal grandfather Dave Stamper wrote songs for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 through 1931 and composed the music for several other Broadway shows. A family legend claims that Stamper wrote the well-known song "Shine On, Harvest Moon" in 1903 for Nora Bayes when he was working as her Vaudeville piano accompanist, but sold the rights and credit to Bayes and her husband Jack Norworth. Rhodes' parents divorced when she was young. Rhodes has two brothers who are twins.

Musical background

Rhodes received her first musical instrument, an acoustic guitar, as a gift from her mother, at age 11. At 14 she was performing original songs in school shows. She left school early at age 16, choosing to obtain a GED. From age 16 to 18, Rhodes began performing in "Open Mic Nights" at Caffè Lena in Saratoga, New York. During this period, Rhodes met Pat Tessitore, the owner of a recording studio, Cathedral Sound Studios in Rensselaer, and became a studio intern to learn recording techniques. Tessitore was impressed with Rhodes' voice and songwriting, and volunteered to record all of the songs she had written to that point.
Tessitore introduced Rhodes to Kevin Bartlett, a musician who had his own record label, Aural Gratification, and he urged her to gather up all the songs that she had recorded, to be released on cassette. She had enough songs to release three cassettes at the same time in 1986, Rhodes Vol. I, Rhodes Vol. II, and Rearmament. In 1987, she released the cassette of Ecto. Her first CD release was Warpaint, in 1991. The first four albums were only available on hand-dubbed cassettes until they were re-released on CD in 1992. For the CD releases, Rhodes Vol. I was renamed Rhodes I, and Rhodes Vol. II was renamed Rhodes II. Each of the CD re-releases contained bonus tracks not on the original cassettes. Aural Gratification released nine Happy Rhodes albums between 1986 and 1995, including Equipoise and RhodeSongs in 1993, Building The Colossus in 1994 and The Keep in 1995. Rhodes left Aural Gratification in 1998.
Rhodes' 10th album, Many Worlds Are Born Tonight, was released in August 1998 by Samson Music, a label founded by Norm Waitt Jr., brother of Ted Waitt, co-founder of the Gateway Computer company. Rhodes was dropped from Samson when the label decided to concentrate on other genres of music and Samson transferred rights to the material back to Rhodes, as well as unsold product.
In 2001 Rhodes recorded an 11th album, called Find Me, which was released October 19, 2007.
Rhodes married musician Bob Muller in 2006 and they currently live on a farm in central upstate New York.

Influences

Rhodes has cited Wendy Carlos, Kate Bush, Queen, Yes, David Bowie, Bach and Peter Gabriel as primary influences. Her father owned a large record collection which included Bagpipe music and Switched-On Bach, by Wendy Carlos. By age nine, Rhodes could sing along with every note from that album. As a teenager she discovered the music of Queen and was impressed by their harmonies, which she later emulated on her first few albums. When Rhodes was introduced at age 16 to Kate Bush's music by an English pen pal, she was impressed by Bush's original writing style, vocal abilities and independence as a female artist.
Rhodes has cited Bach's Air on a G String as her favorite piece of music.

Live performances

Most of her live shows have been in the northeast of America, primarily Philadelphia and New York City. Rhodes has sold out every show she's performed in Philadelphia when she was the headliner. She has performed several times at the Tin Angel, where she always plays two shows in an evening. Rhodes has also played The Middle East Club in 1995, the Mann Theater and the University Museum Auditorium, both in 1992. In New York City Rhodes has played the Bottom Line several times. In 1994 Rhodes performed at YesFest, a convention for fans of the band Yes. She has also performed at the Knitting Factory in New York City as a guest of the band Project Lo.
As a solo artist Rhodes has performed in Philadelphia, New York City, Cambridge, MA, Troy, NY, Albany, NY, Saratoga, NY, Woodstock, NY, Bearsville, NY, New Haven, CT, Danbury, CT, Maple Shade, NJ, Denville, NJ, Bryn Mawr, PA, Mechanicsburg, PA, Cleveland, OH, Toledo, OH, Kenosha, WI, Chicago, IL and Santa Cruz, CA.
Her last major solo tour was in support of her album Many Worlds are Born Tonight in 1998, playing the El Flamingo Club in New York City, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, New York, the Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Bearsville Theater in Bearsville, New York. Though the tour received positive reviews, it was not an economic success due to the ambitious multimedia presentation of the material.

Ectofest

In 1999 Meredith Tarr of New Haven and Chuck Stipak of Danbury, Connecticut organized a one-day music festival in Danbury to honor Rhodes and the mailing list Ecto, with all proceeds going to charity. The lineup for "Ectofest 1999," held on September 4, 1999, consisted of Rhodes, Rachael Sage, Sloan Wainwright, Susan McKeown and the Mila Drumke Band. Tarr and Stipak repeated the festival the next year and on September 2, 2000 "Ectofest 2000" featured Rhodes, Jessica Weiser, Anne Heaton, Amy Fairchild, Sloan Wainwright, Merrie Amsterburg and Susan McKeown.
In 2001, West Coast fans, who were encouraged by other members of the Ecto music discussion group to host a West coast version of the event, organized "Ectofest West" in Santa Cruz, California, held on June 9, 2001, at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. Rhodes flew to California to perform but on the day of the concert she accidentally cut the ring finger on her fret hand while using a Leatherman tool, and severed the deep flexor tendon, as well as causing nerve damage. She was taken to the hospital where the hand was temporarily treated and bandaged. Rhodes performed 12 songs that evening sans guitar, relying on bandmates Eric Nicholas, Carl Adami and Bob Muller to fill in her parts. Rhodes had surgery on the finger when she returned from California and underwent physical therapy so she could play the guitar again. Ectofest West is the only time Rhodes has performed in front of an audience west of Chicago. Other performers at the festival were Cyoakha Grace, Jill Tracy and Veda Hille. / Two Loons for Tea was scheduled to play but the band was stranded in Houston during a hurricane, and was not able to get to Santa Cruz in time. Rhodes was scheduled to play Ectofest 2001 on August 25, 2001, in Danbury, CT but had to bow out because of her injury. Performers at that show were Edie Carey, Mila Drumke, Trina Hamlin, Jargon Society, Rachael Sage and Molly Zenobia. 2001's show was the last Ectofest until the 2007 Ectofest with Happy Rhodes, Noe Venable and Casey Desmond on September 8, 2007, at / the Lily Pad in Cambridge, MA. The show sold out 3 weeks in advance, with fans traveling from all over the United States and also Scotland and Germany.

Miscellaneous live information

In 1991, Rhodes developed a following in Philadelphia through airplay on WXPN-FM. Her song "Feed The Fire" was said to be one of the station's most requested songs of 1991. Rhodes has received airplay and has been interviewed on radio shows such as the syndicated programs Echoes, and The World Cafe. She has received airplay on Morning Becomes Eclectic from KCRW in Santa Monica, CA, and WDST in Woodstock, NY, where Rhodes lived for a time, appearing on the compilation Alternative Woodstock.
Much of the attention Rhodes has received has been via less traditional routes:
Her first four albums, Rhodes Volume I, Rhodes Volume II, Rearmament and Ecto were not conceived and recorded as album releases, but were a gathering together of songs recorded at Cathedral Sound Studios over a number of years. When fellow musician Kevin Bartlett offered to release Rhodes' songs on his cassette-only personal label Aural Gratification, Rhodes culled through the songs she had recorded and ordered them to her satisfaction. Rhodes I and Rhodes II are often considered to be a double album by fans because the songs are similar in theme and instrumentation. The third cassette, Rearmament, uses more electronic instrumentation and often displays the influence of Wendy Carlos. The fourth cassette, Ecto, contained a greater number of the more recent songs Rhodes had recorded and shows a greater maturity and complexity, foreshadowing the music Rhodes would make in the future.

1991 – 1995

Rhodes' first four albums were co-produced by Pat Tessitore and Rhodes, the 1991 album Warpaint was the first result of her collaboration with musician, producer and Aural Gratification record label owner Kevin Bartlett, and the first to feature musicians other than Rhodes. During this period, the two formed a duo named, appropriately enough, "Bartlett/Rhodes". They recorded a number of co-written songs and played a few dates, but the results were not generally considered successful, and they decided to continue on their individual endeavors. 1993 brought Equipoise an album of new material and Rhodesongs a compilation of music from Rhodes' first four album, alternative versions and a David Bowie cover. The cover of the 1994 album Building the Colossus commented on Rhodes' technically oriented fan base with an album sub-head of "c:\happy rhodes" and featured Peter Gabriel collaborators Jerry Marotta and David Torn. This exceptionally productive period was capped with the 1995
compilation The Keep, featuring acoustic versions of earlier songs, the traditional Christmas song Oh Holy Night and a medley of songs by the group Yes.

1996 – present

After having entertained a number of traditional record company offers, and rejecting them due to an unwillingness to give up rights to her music, Rhodes assumed production and engineering duties on the 1998 release Many Worlds Are Born Tonight. Once the album was complete, she signed with a new label, Samson Music, and was able to tour the northeastern United States with a more elaborate stage show. The song Roy was released as a single and reached #42 on the Billboard Club Play/Dance Music chart. While sales were far greater than her previous albums, Samson eventually decided to concentrate on their Gold Circle Films division and dropped Rhodes. The parting was amicable, and the label returned her musical rights, as well as all unsold product.
In 2001 Rhodes recorded a new album, Find Me, but it was not released until 2007, although a limited-edition CD sampler consisting of 8 songs – Fall, Charlie, The Chosen One, Can't Let Go, One And Many, Find Me, Here And Hereafter and She Won't Go was sold at her 2005 concert. The album includes three additional songs – Treehouse, Little Brother and Queen. One additional song, Shutdown, was recorded for the album but is not on the official release.
Musicians on Find Me include guitarist Bon Lozaga and bassist Hansford Rowe of Gongzilla, bassist Carl Adami, guitarists Ted Kumpel and Jon Cather and pianist Rob Schwimmer.
In 2018 the Chicago-based record label The Numero Group released a retrospective compilation of 18 songs titled "Happy Rhodes: Ectotrophia." The album package includes lyrics as well as extensive liner notes by Erin Osmon.

Collaborations