Sonny Rhodes

Sonny Rhodes
Rhodes performing in 2000
Background information
Birth name	Clarence Edward Smith
Born	(1940-11-03) November 3, 1940
Origin	Smithville, Texas, United States
Genres	Blues, delta blues
Occupation(s)	Singer, guitarist, songwriter
Instrument	Lap steel guitar
Years active	1958–present
Labels	Evidence, Galaxy, Ichiban, Kingsnake, Rhodes-Way, Stony Plain

Sonny Rhodes (born Clarence Edward Smith, November 3, 1940) is an American blues singer and lap steel guitar player. He has recorded over two hundred songs. "I'm what you call a self-proclaimed Disciple of the Blues!" said Rhodes about his years playing and singing for fans of blues around the world. He has been nominated 15 times for the Blues Music Awards winning the Instrumentalist-Other category in 2011.

Biography

Influences

Born in Smithville, Texas, United States, Rhodes was the sixth and last child of sharecropper parents, Le Roy and Julia Smith. He received his first guitar at the age of eight as a Christmas present and really became serious about the blues at age 12. He credits his uncle as his source of inspiration. Rhodes began performing around Smithville and nearby Austin in the late 1950s, while still in his teens. Rhodes listened to a lot of T-Bone Walker's music when he was young, and other guitarists he credits as being influences include L. C. Robinson, Percy Mayfield, Pee Wee Crayton and B. B. King. Rhodes's first band, Clarence Smith and the Daylighters, played the Austin area blues clubs before Rhodes joined the Navy after high school graduation.

In the Navy, he was stationed in California, where he worked for a while 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 the bass guitar. He played bass behind Freddie King and his friend Albert Collins. After his stint in the Navy, Rhodes returned to California while in his mid-20s, and lived in Fresno, California for a few years before signing a recording contract with Galaxy Records in Oakland, California. In 1966, he recorded a single, "I Don't Love You No More" and 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" on his own label, Rhodes-Way Records in 1978.

Rhodes toured Europe in 1976 and released numerous recordings on European labels including I Don't Want My Blues Colored Bright and the live album, In Europe. In 1985, he released Just Blues on his own label, Rhodes-Way Records. In the late 1980s, he began recording first for Ichiban Records and later for Kingsnake Records which included Ichiban's Disciple of the Blues (1991) and Living Too Close to the Edge (1992).

Other work

Television

Rhodes recorded the theme music for the Firefly television series, "The Ballad of Serenity", which was written by the series' creator, Joss Whedon.

Festivals

Rhodes has played at the San Francisco Blues Festival six times; Italy's Musicamdo Jazz and Blues Festival in 2005; and the Fresno Blues Festival in 2007.

Selected discography

Year	Title	Genre	Label
1995	Just Blues	Contemporary Blues	Evidence
1996	Won't Rain in California	Contemporary Blues	EPM Musique
1996	Out of Control	Delta Blues	Kingsnake
1997	Born To Be Blue	Delta Blues	Kingsnake
1999	Blue Diamond	Traditional Blues	Stony Plain Music
2001	A Good Day To Play The Blues	Traditional Blues	Stony Plain Music
2008	I'm Back Again	Delta Blues	EPM Musique

External links

• Sonny Rhodes MySpace
• Sonny Rhodes
• Reverbnation article