I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— From Nov. 2021 to Nov. 2022, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina will host three rotating large-scale exhibitions (with motion graphics, surround sound and high-definition projectors): featuring Claude Monet beginning in Spring 2022, Leonardo da Vinci beginning in Summer 2022 …. and with the first opening this coming November 5th entitled Van Gogh Alive.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this essay by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic— how the “recent wave of anti-trans legislation follows a decades-long pattern of the GOP targeting those they think lack the numbers or votes to properly fight back”.
HAIL and FAREWELL to one of the co-founders of the band Poco (and in later years, its bandleader), Rusty Young— who changed my mind about the pedal steel guitar being only a country music instrument, by the way he could rock-out (here’s an extended listen, from the 2:50 to 5:30 part of this recording for a great example) — who has died at the age of seventy-five.
THURSDAY's CHILD is an Arizona kitteh and new mama … who had to be freed from an automobile engine by a Humane Society staffer, with her and her kittens well and soon to be up for adoption.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this essay by Prem Thakker of The American Prospect— urging the national Democratic Party to allow local Democrats to choose their own candidates.
WITH THE DEATH of Bernie Madoff this week, it reminded me: many of the American Greed episodes on CNBC (dating back to that era) all painted rosy pictures of some financial scam (albeit on a smaller scale), with investors believing they had a safe harbor, and lavish lifestyles now being led by its perpetrators. Inevitably, though ……. Stacy Keach would intone words to the effect of:
"But then: the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the stock market all brought the scheme to an end, with investors wondering ... where their money was”.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Mother Mayhem the Cat — a Kentucky kitteh who snuck into the ceiling of an unfinished basement to have her kittens, with one having to be rescued with the help of a construction foreman.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the late Seamus Heaney— winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, resulting from his work as a poet, playwright, literary critic and translator …. whom Joe Biden often cites (as well as Bill Clinton).
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz (there is one common question).
OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS?— two TV/film stars: American Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) and Englishman Tom Felton (“Harry Potter”).
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… actually, more of a musical instrument: the Rhodes Electric Piano (or as the Fender Rhodes, for the years that Leo Fender's company marketed it). Throughout the 1970's especially, one heard its sound on many famous recordings (some of which will be mentioned later). What many people do not know is its origin, and just how much it filled a need when introduced: Ray Charles said it was like "An atom bomb on the musical landscape. Everything was changed forever." And he often played the Rhodes Piano's rival (the Wurlitzer Electric Piano).
Harold Rhodes was born in 1910, and trained to become an architect as a student at USC. But he was drawn to the piano, inspired by the likes of Art Tatum and Fats Waller. He became a piano teacher during the Depression in the greater Los Angeles area in the 1930’s and had celebrity students such as Lana Turner and Harpo Marx, drawn to his methods that taught 1920’s jazz piano as well as classical music. He became so successful that even during the Depression he opened a series of nationwide schools and had a radio program earning him the nickname of “Piano Teacher of the Air”.
During World War II, he was asked by the Army to develop a music therapy for wounded soldiers in hospitals. Forced to improvise, he wound up using ... and this should warm-the-heart of liberals ... surplus Air Force bomber parts, in order to make miniature keyboards for wounded service members to play. As part of a "Make and Play" program, over 1/4 million GI's learned piano during the war.
After the war, in addition to his teaching he kept refining his rudimentary electric piano design and released a version called Pre-Piano as a device to help travelling piano teachers teach basic keyboard skills.
Then in 1959 Rhodes met up with the legendary Leo Fender - who was eager to branch-out from guitars - and formed a joint venture to build these pianos. But Leo Fender was unhappy with the sound it produced, and at first only agreed to produce the Fender Piano Bass - containing just the bottom 32 keys.
Perhaps its most famous user was from a band that had trouble auditioning for a bass player. Then their keyboard player discovered the Piano Bass: which solved the bottom-end sound problem for Ray Manzarek of The Doors, who simply sat the Piano Bass on top of his own electronic organ.
Due to health reasons, Leo Fender sold his company to CBS in 1965 - and while legions of musicians have lamented that move (with owning a "pre-CBS" instrument or amplifier a mark of distinction) one positive came out of that arrangement: CBS agreed to produce the Rhodes Piano, with the first model a 73-key model. Newer models came out, including a full 88-key model (although some of its more eccentric designs did not pan out) and the sound continually improved as the 1970's approached.
As the size and volume of guitar and bass amplifiers increased, keyboard players were at something of a disadvantage. The electric piano offered a way to compete: incorporating a Fender amplifier as part of the set-up also made it compact on crowded stages.
A word about the piano's design: pressing a key resulted in a hammer striking a rod connected to a tonebar that resembles a tuning fork - and even when un-amplified, one can hear a (faint) sound. By contrast, the Wurlitzer electric piano strikes actual metal bars, with a bit more bite.
If there can be said to be one musician who truly helped popularize the Fender Rhodes, it would be the legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis - who (largely) abandoned his traditional-sounding modern jazz sound in the mid-1960's, adopting electric instruments and was even persuaded to play at the Fillmore by Bill Graham.
And he happened to have three keyboard players during the 1960's - Chick Corea , Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul who adopted the Rhodes Piano wholesale. In fact, an old issue of Downbeat Magazine even contained one of those thin, promotional 'extra-soft vinyl' mini-records in which Hancock explained his skepticism upon seeing the Rhodes ... but grew to love it. Pop musicians needed little encouragement to use the Rhodes, but it was Miles Davis' endorsement - and his three keyboardists (who went onto stardom themselves) - that helped make the Rhodes a fixture during its golden decade of the 1970's.
However, the CBS cost-cutting measures that negatively affected the rest of the Fender lines came to affect the Rhodes later in the 1970's. In 1983, the Rhodes line was sold directly to CBS boss William Schultz, who closed the main factory in 1985 and then subsequently sold the line to the Roland keyboard company in 1987. Roland subsequently produced digital versions of these keyboards, which did not meet with Harold Rhodes' approval (or even consultation) - and so he never endorsed the product.
Harold Rhodes eventually re-acquired the commercial rights to his instruments in 1997, and won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. But he was in poor health, and Harold Rhodes died in December, 2000: just eleven days short of his 90th birthday. His Rhodes Music Company continues to this day, making new versions of his classic keyboards.
Technical breakthroughs have made it less used today, as it is no longer the breakthrough instrument it once was (and others have many more functions than the Rhodes did). That impression was confirmed by DK's resident keyboard stalwart jnhobbs who added that jazzers and R&B players still make frequent use and that "Synth keyboards and samplers are often judged by how good their Rhodes sounds are, ironically enough". Given its history ... it makes sense.
The best way to indicate how vital this instrument was is simply to list a few hit songs that utilized one, as follows. The Beatles ("Let It Be" and "Get Back", both played by Billy Preston), Marvin Gaye ("Heard It Through the Grapevine"), Stevie Wonder ("You Are the Sunshine of my Life"), Billy Joel ("Just the Way You Are"), Paul Simon ("Still Crazy after All These Years"), Traffic ("Empty Pages"), Elton John ("Daniel"), The Doors ("Riders on the Storm"), Herb Alpert ("This Guy’s In Love with You") and numerous others. There is also a book about the instrument - perhaps a fitting way to chronicle its popularity.
While not as big fan of Steely Dan as many others, I do have a favorite song of theirs: Dirty Work, which sounded unlike anything else they recorded, and largely abandoned after its singer (David Palmer) left the band in 1973. But it features the Fender Rhodes (like many of their other songs) as well as other keyboards.
Light the candle Put the lock upon the door You have sent the maid home early Like a thousand times before Like the castle in its corner In a medieval game I foresee terrible trouble And I stay here just the sameI'm a fool to do your dirty work I don't wanna do your dirty work ... no more I'm a fool to do your dirty work I don't wanna do your dirty work ... no more