Happy Rhodes

Songwriter Happy Rhodes, also a multi-instrumentalist and studio engineer, commands a four-octave vocal instrument whose upper reaches match those of Kate Bush while its lower reaches track alongside Annie Lennox, distinguishing her from nearly all contemporaries. Progressive, atmospheric, and singular dream-pop recordings she produced herself between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, most fully realized on Warpaint and Ecto, display her distinctive layered and expansive style; global listeners discovered this work largely through an ardent following that calls itself Ectophiles together with the reach of the internet. After stepping away from solo releases following 2007’s Find Me, she became lead vocalist of Security Project, the all-star Peter Gabriel tribute ensemble whose set draws almost exclusively from Gabriel’s catalog, in 2016. She additionally designs pro-audio gear for Dangerous Music. Numero Group released the 18-track retrospective Ectotrophia in 2018, compiling material from her first four albums.

Born Kimberly Tyler Rhodes in 1965, she adopted her childhood nickname as her legal name at age sixteen. As a preteen immersed in Queen, she emulated Freddie Mercury and deliberately broadened her range to match his keys, likewise absorbing the band’s multi-layered studio techniques; further early influences encompassed Wendy Carlos’ Switched on Bach, Yes, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, and David Bowie. During her teenage years she began serious guitar playing and songwriting. Kate Bush’s December 9, 1978 Saturday Night Live appearance prompted an irreversible shift in her artistic direction. After enduring bullying, Rhodes left high school in eleventh grade with her mother’s support to devote herself to music. Pat Tessitore, founder of nearby Cathedral Sound Studio, became her mentor; she started as an intern engineer, yet once he heard her voice the emphasis moved entirely to her singing and original material. In 1985 Tessitore supplied a Roland Juno 106 synthesizer that transformed her compositional methods. She assembled a modest home studio and began exploring sound, production, writing, and arranging. Between 1984 and 1986 Tessitore captured her original songs; Kevin Bartlett’s Aural Gratification label later issued these tracks on the cassettes Happy Rhodes, Vol. 1, Happy Rhodes, Vol. 2, and Rearmament, followed a year later by Ecto. Performing live as the duo Bartlett/Rhodes throughout 1987 yielded no recordings.

In 1988, participants on a Kate Bush internet bulletin board learned of Rhodes from DJ Vickie Williams, who had encountered the music through tape trading and began airing it on her KKFI program Suspended in Gaffa in Kansas City, Missouri. Fans seeking a dedicated space established the Ecto hub, which rapidly enlarged her international cult following. Rhodes resumed solo work with 1991’s Warpaint, whose single “Feed the Fire” received substantial WXPN airplay and thereby broadened her audience; she subsequently performed a sold-out concert at Philadelphia’s University Museum Auditorium for both longtime Ectophiles and newcomers. Aural Gratification issued compact-disc versions of her first four albums the next year. Two further albums, Equipoise and RhodeSongs, appeared in 1993. After Building the Colossus in 1994 she released the live-and-unreleased acoustic collection The Keep.

Despite interest from major labels she declined every offer in order to retain ownership of her masters. She produced and engineered 1998’s Many Worlds Are Born Tonight for the independent Samson Music. Touring the northeastern United States with a full stage presentation, she placed the single “Roy” at number 42 on the Club Play/Dance Music chart. Although sales surpassed those of most prior releases combined, Samson’s owners, primarily focused on their film division Gold Circle Films, parted ways amicably and returned both unsold stock and master rights. Fans organized the day-long Ectofest events in Danbury, Connecticut, and Santa Cruz, California, in 2000 and 2001, with Rhodes headlining. She self-recorded Find Me in 2001; the album remained unreleased until 2007, though an eight-song limited-edition sampler was sold at a 2005 concert. Guest musicians on Find Me included guitarist Bon Lozaga, bassists Hansford Rowe and Carl Adami, guitarists Ted Kumpel and Jon Cather, and pianist Rob Schwimmer. Rhodes maintained a day job through the early 2000s while privately writing and demoing; she also contributed studio work to projects by Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster, and Han Rowe before reemerging publicly in 2016 as lead vocalist of Security Project. Fellow members Trey Gunn, Jerry Marotta, Michael Cozzi, and keyboardist David Jameson joined her on the two-part Live in 2016, the digital-only Five, and the studio album Contact the following year.

Numero Group’s 2018 retrospective Ectotrophia, containing lyrics and an extensive essay by Erin Osmon, drew eighteen tracks from her earliest albums. Concurrently, 7D Media made her catalog available again via Bandcamp.