I might be sounding like a broken record, but aAfter seeing her live 3 times, in 3 different cities (3 different states!) in 4 days, I’m on a major Happy Rhodes high, and I can’t let go.
Her voice alone is enough to make me swoon, but I love her music too. It’s hard to describe, sometimes very electronica, sometimes soft acoustic. Not rock, not folk, not pop, not country/classical/jazz/blues/whathaveyou. Her music is very high-quality and except for the budgets involved, could sit on the shelf next to Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and Jane Siberry.
Song Samples here. (she knows I share her music and is ok with it)
She’s released 10 albums, the first 9 on one teeny tiny indie label (Kevin Bartlett’s Aural Gratification) and the 10th on Samson Records (though it was finished long before she ever hooked up with them), who promptly dropped her when they realized they didn’t know what to do with her.
Sad story about her last days at Samson here.
She’s without a record company now, but she’s still working on her 11th album, recording it piecemeal, working a day job too. She just did a mini-tour in the east and midwest and sounds as good as ever. This is a super- indie artist who can’t afford the payola it takes to get her songs played on the radio, placed on hip TV shows and in movies, or talked about on NPR. Word-of-mouth (like my big one) is just about all she has to rely on. I’m pleased to oblige, and I don’t have any financial or professional dealings with her. (I always say that, but I feel I have to in this day and age of professional Internet plants.)
I sometimes feel that she isn’t taken seriously because of her name, but it’s her name, and she not willing to change it to play some sort of marketing/publicity game, so I hope anyone who snickers will give her a break already. (If that sounds snarky toward people I don’t know, please forgive me. I’ve been a fan since 1988 and have seen my share of rolled eyeballs. Online you can’t see eyeballs rolling. If you didn’t roll your eyeballs or snicker, that wasn’t meant for you.)