R
Sonny
Rhodes
b: Nov. 3, 1940,
Smithville, TX
Blues guitarist, singer and songwriter Sonny
Rhodes is such a talented songwriter, so full of musical ideas, that he is
destined to inherit the seats left open by the untimely passing of blues greats
like Albert King and Albert Collins.
Born in 1940,
he was the 6th and final child of Le Roy and Julia Smith, who were
sharecroppers. Rhodes began playing seriously when he was 12, although he got
his first guitar when he was 8 as a Christmas present. Rhodes began performing
around Smithville and nearby Austin in the late 50's, while still in his teens.
Rhodes' listened to a lot of T-Bone Walker when he was young, and it shows in
his playing. Other guitarists he credits as being influences include Pee-Wee
Crayton and B.B. King. Rhodes's first band, Clarence Smith and the Daylighters,
played the Austin area blues clubs before Rhodes decided to join the Navy after
graduating from high school.
In the Navy, he moved
West to California, where he worked for awhile as a radio man and closed-circuit
Navy ship disc-jockey, telling off-color jokes in between the country and blues
records he would spin for the entertainment of the
sailors.
Rhodes recorded a single for Domino Records
in Austin, "I'll Never Let You Go When Something Is Wrong", in 1958, and also
learned to play bass. He played bass behind Freddie King and his friend Albert
Collins. After his stint in the Navy, Rhodes returned to Calif. while in his mid
20's and lived in Fresno for a few years before hooking up a deal with Galaxy
Records in Oakland. In 1966, he recorded a single, "I Don't Love You No More",
b/w "All Night Long I Play The Blues". He recorded another single for Galaxy in
1967 and then in 1978, out of total frustration with the San Francisco Bay Area
record companies, he recorded "Cigarette Blues" b/w "Bloodstone Beat" on his own
label. Rhodes toured Europe in 1976, and that opened a whole new market for him,
and he was recorded by several European labels, but without much success. His
European recordings include I Don't Want My Blues Colored Bright and a
live album, In Europe. In desperation again, Rhodes went into the studio
again to record an album in 1985, Just Blues, on his own Rhodesway
label.
Fortunately, things have been on track
for Rhodes since the late 80's, when he began recording first for the Ichiban
label and later for Kingsnake. His albums for Ichiban include Disciple of the
Blues (1991) and Living to Close to the Edge
(1992).
More recently, Rhodes has gotten
better distribution of his albums with the Sanford, Florida-based Kingsnake
label. Aside from his self-produced 1985 release of Just Blues (now
available on cd through Evidence Music) his best albums are the ones he recorded
for Kingsnake, for these are the records that have gotten Rhodes and his various
backup bands out on the road together throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. On
these records we can hear Rhodes, the fully developed songwriter, and not
surprisingly, these albums drew high marks from blues critics.