(Disclaimer: Happy Rhodes knows I share her music. She’s very cool with it)
I thought a few people might be interested in hearing this. I don’t remember ever hearing of someone else covering this song.
http://vickie.teemingmillions.com/HappyRhodes_IntoTheWest.mp3
I knew that Happy loved Lord of the Rings (first the books, then the movies) but even I was floored when she decided to sing “Into the West” live at the first of 2 shows I saw the other night. She’s never performed it before. I was hoping she’d sing it at the 2nd show, where we had a board feed, but she didn’t. She may never again. This is an audience recording, and we were off to the side next to one of the speakers, so please be kind. High-quality it’s not, but I think it sounds pretty good, considering.
I realize Annie’s is the definitive version, and no one will top her Academy Award-winning original, but please give it a chance and take a listen. It’s a gorgeous song no matter who sings it. I’d love to get it to Fran Walsh, but there’s no way.
I’m a huge Happy Rhodes fan, so I guess I’d love it no matter what. I hope others who aren’t familiar with her will too. She’s terribly obscure, even though she has 11 albums. The obscurity comes from not wanting to sell her soul (or her masters) to a record company, but sticking with tiny indie record labels with no money means that obscurity is pretty much going to be how it is. She’s as talented as a “professional” musician/singer-songwriter, but since she doesn’t make money as a musician and does it for the love of it, I guess she’d be considered an “amateur” musican. She certainly can’t be compared to people who have and make big bucks to make music, like Tori Amos or Kate Bush (goddess’o’mine).
Anyway, she lives on a farm in upstate New York and works day jobs, and doesn’t play live very often, so when she does, if I have the money at the time, I go see her, something I’ve done several times over the years. My husband and I flew to Philadelphia on Saturday to see her play a tiny little club called the Tin Angel, where she performed 2 shows with a guitar player (Bon Lozaga) and a bass player (Hansford Rowe). The shows were worth the expense, to me.
I’ve heard Happy cover Kate Bush, and Peter Gabriel, and now something from The Lord of the Rings. It can’t get much better.
(If anyone should be interested in hearing some of Happy’s own music, I keep a sampler page at
http://vickie.teemingmillions.com/happy/samples/index.html which, contrary to what’s written there, Happy does know about. She’s very cool with taping concerts and sharing music. She’s got that indie spirit in her.)