Hey Erik;
Good looking out. Harold died a few days ago. (Haven't seen the obit, can
someone please post a link?) As some here know, I was vice-president of the
newly formed Rhodes Music Corp. for a while, and Harold was in really bad
health ever since I came on board, back in '96. Some interesting facts about
Harold:
1. He taught upwards of 150,000 wounded GI's during WWII to build and play
their own bedside piano. It was a little mini unit they could assemble right
in their beds. It was the most succesful government music education program
in history.
2. He maintained that it was he, and not Leo Fender, who really developed
the Fender electric guitar.
3. The Rhodes was the largest selling electric keyboard instrument of all
time; when it was being mass produced by CBS, Harold got a royalty of 1 cent
per key. That's between 73-88 cents per unit, and units had wholesale costs
sometimes over $1,000. Nice of them, wasn't it?
4. He won a lifetime achievement NARAS (Grammy) award in '96. Luminaries who
weighed in;
Josef Zawinul (Weather Report);
"Harold, before you, my life was hard. You gave me a sound and you gave me a
life."
Chick Corea
"The Rhodes represents the only true advancement to the piano keyboard in
the 20th century."
Ray Charles
"The Rhodes was a musical atom bomb, changing the face of the music
landscape forever."
In short, Harold was a great guy. He used to travel with Cannonball Adderly,
helped young artists like Herbie Hancock and Patrice Rushen, made "how to
play" piano videos, *and* he installed his own gas pump at his house!
The Rhodes is a deceptively simple instrument that, like its more
complicated uncle, the piano, is amazingly resistant to accurate sampling.
He was not a very good businessman, unfortunately, and the lawsuits between
his heirs and other interests continue, as I have heard, even to this day.
Rest in Peace, Harold B. Rhodes!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jan 03 2001 - 17:50:30 CET