Biography
Rodd Keith stands out among musicians in the song poem or send-us-your-lyrics trade as its most widely recognized practitioner and ranks as one of its most productive. Raised in a devout household filled with music, his relatives assembled a vocal group that performed across the revival and church circuit of Midwest America and even issued several 78s. From childhood he took up numerous instruments and created arrangements, later becoming known for his capacity to play whatever instrument came to hand and to reproduce any piece after hearing it once. Following graduation from a religious school in Florida, he took charge of the music program at a church in Baltimore. There he met his first wife, Roberta, and the pair toured the country as a keyboard duo on piano and organ. In Wichita, KS, during the late '50s they presented a weekly live television program, Just a Song at Twilight, often preparing striking new arrangements immediately before broadcast. An enthusiast of jazz artists such as Stan Kenton, he introduced modern harmonies that occasionally met resistance in church settings. Their son, Ellery Eskelin, was born in 1959 in Wichita, after which the family relocated to Los Angeles. By 1961 his wife and child had returned to Baltimore. He later remarried and had a daughter, Stacey, with his second wife Joni. Described by all accounts as a loving man, he remained too easygoing and detached from the "real" world to sustain family life, and his second wife also departed. From the mid-'60s until his death in 1974 he worked intermittently in the song poem industry, supplying keyboards, vocals, and compositions. He regarded the work as little more than a form of prostitution, yet it supplied ready income while he pursued a lifestyle of intense hallucinogen intake. He would sometimes record thirty songs in a single day without second takes, then cease work to spend several consecutive days consuming hallucinogens. These experiences intensified his enjoyment of wordplay and storytelling until his speech grew nearly incomprehensible, and by the end of his life he often spoke backwards or in cryptic wordplay. At the close of 1974 he died after falling from an overpass, and those who knew him remain divided over whether the fall was accidental or intentional, tied to a film scene idea he had mentioned two weeks earlier. He also recorded under the name Rod Rogers, and for years song poem collectors could not establish his true identity. Jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin discovered that people outside his family possessed recordings of his father's unconventional music and regarded it highly, indeed considering Keith a genius. The discovery led Eskelin to bring to light the story of his father, Rodney Keith Eskelin. His music appears on the compilations Beat of the Traps and The Makers of Smooth Music, both released on Carnage Press. In 1996 Tzadik issued an entire CD of Rodd Keith's music titled I Died Today.
Albums
