Happy Rhodes
Happy Rhodes is an American singer, musician, and songwriter with a four-octave vocal range, releasing 11 albums between 1986 and 2007.
Family
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 Springs, 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 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 products.
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 at 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.
Security Project
In 2016, Rhodes came out of retirement and started singing with Security Project, a Peter Gabriel appreciation band featuring Jerry Marotta, Trey Gunn, Michael Cozzi, and David Jameson, singing lead for 11 live shows in 2016, 19 shows in 2017, and 8 more shows in Spring 2018.Miscellaneous live information
- After 2001's Ectofest West, Rhodes did not perform again until April 2003, when she performed at a house concert in New Haven with percussionist Bob Muller. Rhodes has also performed at house concerts in Maple Shade, NJ, Toledo, OH, and Kenosha, WI.
- Rhodes' most recent solo performance before Ectofest '07 was at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia on January 29, 2005, where she sold out two shows in the same evening.
- Rhodes has toured three times as guest keyboardist and vocalist for the Bon Lozaga band Project Lo, in 1997, 1999, and 2000.
- Through the years, Rhodes has performed live with backing musicians Bob Muller, Kevin Bartlett, Bon Lozaga, Carl Adami, Hansford Rowe, Kelly Bird, Martha Waterman, Eric Nicholas, Mark Foster, Ray Jung, Matthew Guarnere, Dave Sepowski, Peter Sheehan, Dean Sharp, Jamie Edwards and Paul Huesman.
- Rhodes has opened for or played on the same bill as 10,000 Maniacs, Shawn Colvin, Jeffrey Gaines, Pete & Maura Kennedy, Kyle Davis, Barbara Kessler, Willy Porter, and Steve Forbert, among others.
Fans
Much of the attention Rhodes has received has been via less traditional routes:
- In 1987 Aural Gratification released a sampler tape of Rhodes' music from the album Ecto. In the late summer of 1988 one of these cassettes was obtained by a programmer for an all-female-artists radio show called Suspended In Gaffa on KKFI-FM in Kansas City, MO. The programmer's discussion of Rhodes' music during 1989–1991 on the Kate Bush Usenet newsgroup rec.music.gaffa led to the formation in 1991 of the "Ecto" mailing list, named after Rhodes' 4th album and the song by the same name on the album.
- In 2000, an unknown person mislabeled one of Rhodes' non-album tracks, "When The Rain Came Down", as being a duet between Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, and shared it on the original Napster file-sharing network.