This short is a part of
Steve Winwood:  English Soul

Music Films

The One Man Beatles: Something About Emitt Rhodes

Cosimo Messeri discovered singer/songwriter Emitt Rhodes the same way everyone does. He pulled an old album from a record bin, and it contained the most glorious Beatle-esque pop music imaginable. Who was behind this? Cosimo had to know, so he embarked on an around-the-globe quest to find Rhodes – a teenage L.A. legend in the 1960s, once dubbed America’s Paul McCartney. Burned out, ripped off, and bitter, Rhodes fled the music biz by age 24 and vanished from the culture radar. For more than 30 years, as his songs were being covered by The Bangles (Live) and Richard Thompson (Time Will Show the Wiser), Rhodes remained deeply in the shadows, until Cosimo came knocking and solved one of the greatest “whatever happened to” riddles of pop music.