Emitt Rhodes Returns After 4 Decades With Dog on a Chain

[jamestkirk]

Finally!

Emitt Rhodes Returns After Four Decades With "Dog on a Chain" (Exclusive Song)

By ERIC R. DANTON / wall street journal



It’s not that Emitt Rhodes was ever fully forgotten, but nearly 43 years between albums is a long time to remember. The Los Angeles singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist returns after an absence of more than four decades with “Dog on a Chain,” the first song from “Rainbow Ends,” his first album since 1973. The track premieres today on Speakeasy.

Praised back then for a sophisticated pop sensibility, Rhodes picks up where he left off, turning a song about a nasty divorce into an effortless meditation on heartache and loss, complete with a lingering melodic hook, airy vocal harmonies from Aimee Mann and a guitar solo from Jon Brion.

Rhodes wrote an early version of “Dog on a Chain” in the late 1970s and shelved it for decades before revisiting the song sometime after 2006, when he met Chris Price, a musician and producer who eventually persuaded Rhodes to make a new album. “I can remember going through quite a few different choruses,” Rhodes tells Speakeasy. “I’m a songwriter, so I keep going until I think I’ve got it right.”

“Dog on a Chain” was one of maybe 20 songs Rhodes had cataloged in manila envelopes, where he stuck the ideas he started, but never finished, in the years after he released “Farewell to Paradise” in 1973. It was his fourth solo album after a stint playing in the late-’60s band the Merry-Go-Round. An onerous recording contract and disappointing commercial sales made it the last album he was willing to make.

“I worked very hard, and it was as if I wasn’t working hard enough,” Rhodes says. “I just burned out, is what I did.”

He worked as a recording engineer for years, renting out his home studio and running the equipment in it, until he shut it all down. “When you spend the day working on somebody else’s project, you don’t work on yours,” he says.

After shuttering the studio, he began writing again, funneling ideas into envelopes that he set aside. What prompted him to resume sketching out songs? “It was a broken heart,” he says, quietly. “It’s always a broken heart.”

When Rhodes first met Price, he declined the younger musician’s request to help Price make his own album. Yet the two became friends, and six or seven years later, Rhodes began playing Price songs he had written. “I expected great melodies and well-constructed lyrics, but I was floored by how much raw feeling was in these songs,” Price says.

Rhodes agreed to try making an album. Though he was known back in the day for playing all the instruments on his albums himself, Rhodes recorded the 11 songs on “Rainbow Ends” with a band that included Price, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner of Jellyfish (who are part of Beck’s current band), Rooney guitarist Taylor Locke and New Pornographers drummer Joe Seiders, with contributions from musicians including Mann, Brion, Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles and Nels Cline and Pat Sansone of Wilco.

After so many years away, Rhodes has modest expectations for the new album. “I hope people like it. That’s about it,” he says. “It would be nice to have it be successful, but if somebody likes it, then I’m successful.”

What about the possibility of another album after “Rainbow Ends?” “I have more envelopes,” Rhodes says.

“Rainbow Ends” is due Feb. 26, 2016 on Omnivore Recordings. What do you think of “Dog on a Chain?” Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Song sample...
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/11/ ... sive-song/

[jamestkirk]

Emitt Rhodes Pledge Music trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwklFEv0Z68Press Release: Emitt Rhodes Rainbow Ends

http://omnivorerecordings.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Emitt Rhodes to release first new album in 43 years. Rainbow Ends coming February 26, 2016 from Omnivore Recordings.

The singer-songwriter, whose 1971 debut is a power-pop classic, was joined by special guests Roger Joseph Manning Jr. & Jason Falkner of Jellyfish, Nels Cline, Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs, Jon Brion, Bleu, and members of Brian Wilson’s band.

SXSW 2016 showcase confirmed.

PledgeMusic campaign underway, providing premiums varied from deluxe editions of recording to a day in Rhodes’ studio.


LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Emitt Rhodes began his career in his teens, as drummer for the SoCal band The Palace Guard. He eventually took the reigns as leader of The Merry Go Round, who scored pop hits with “Live” and “You’re a Very Lovely Woman” in the late 1960s. At the release of his critically acclaimed eponymous debut in 1971, he gained a reputation as a “one-man Beatles,” since he wrote, recorded and produced the album in his home studio. But then, the way many music stories unfurl, after battling bad contracts and industry demands, Rhodes saw his last release, Farewell To Paradise, in 1973. Emitt Rhodes never recorded another full-length LP. Until now.

On February 26, 2016, Omnivore Recordings will proudly release Rainbow Ends, Emitt Rhodes’ first new studio album in 43 years, on CD, Digital and gatefold, colored vinyl. A PledgeMusic campaign has been set up for pre-orders, offering exclusive collectibles, the album itself, and even a day in Rhodes’ studio. Details are available at www.pledgemusic.com/emittrhodes

After connecting with producer Chris Price in 2013, Rhodes revived his home studio with help from Price and an all-star band, all of whom had been enamored of Rhodes’ work: Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner (both solo artists, members of Jellyfish, and currently in Beck’s studio and touring band), indie producer and musician Fernando Perdomo, Rooney’s Taylor Locke and New Pornographers’ drummer Joe Seiders. They would cut the new record live in that space.

More special guests appeared to make this momentous release even more special: Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs (Bangles), composer and producer Jon Brion, Wilco’s Nels Cline and Pat Sansone, Bleu, and Probyn Gregory & Nelson Bragg from Brain Wilson’s band, among others. What was achieved is more than what folks thought would ever happen. They made Emitt’s first full-length in more than four decades.

Rainbow Ends is the album generations have been waiting for. Eleven new tracks for longtime fans who’d held onto their out-of-print ABC albums, for those who found out about Rhodes via “Lullaby” being featured in The Royal Tennenbaums, and for the uninitiated who’d heard their favorite artists and friends rave about his small, but truly vital and influential catalog.

An Emitt Rhodes showcase at SXSW 2016 will be a highlight of the annual music festival, and more dates are in the works.

Producer Price says, “I view this as a continuation album, meaning it isn’t meant to be recreating the sound from his first record, but instead what he might have sounded like after his third album, Farewell To Paradise, if he kept making music in the mid-to-late ’70s.”

According to Rhodes, “I had a spurt there, you know. I just wrote a whole bunch of songs. I’m just gonna write what my heart tells me, because that’s the only thing that really matters, isn’t it? Sometimes you don’t know, and then the light goes on and you do know.

“The music is very good on this record. I think that these guys are all wonderful players and there’s all sorts of interesting stuff. I hope people like it, and I want you young guys to be able to get your due.

“I think whenever it happens, it happens on time.”

It’s rare to have your dreams come true. For many, a new Emitt Rhodes recording has only been a fantasy. In 2016, the Rainbow Ends at a true pot of gold.


CD/LP/Digital Track List:
1. Dog On A Chain
2. If I Knew Then
3. If It Isn’t So
4. This Wall Between Us
5. Someone Else
6. I Can’t Tell My Heart
7. Put Some Rhythm To It
8. It’s All Behind Us Now
9. What’s a Man To Do
10. Friday’s Love
11. Rainbow Ends

Watch (and feel free to post) the Emitt Rhodes Pledge Music trailer:
https://youtu.be/vwklFEv0Z68

Omnivore is offering holiday gift certificates:
http://omnivorerecordings.com/gift-certificate/


About Omnivore Recordings:
Founded in 2010 by highly respected, longtime industry veterans Cheryl Pawelski, Greg Allen, Dutch Cramblitt, and Brad Rosenberger, Omnivore Recordings preserves the legacies and music created by historical, heritage, and catalog artists while also releasing previously unissued, newly found “lost” recordings and making them available for music-loving audiences to discover. Omnivore Recordings is distributed by Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA).

For more information on Omnivore Recordings, please contact Conqueroo: Cary Baker • (323) 656-1600 • cary@conqueroo.com

Omnivore Recordings official website: www.OmnivoreRecordings.com • Become a fan on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/OmnivoreRecordings • Follow on Twitter @OmnivoreRecords • General inquiries: music@omnivorerecordings.com