Happy Rhodes

Happy Rhodes
Happy Rhodes in 2003
Background information
Birth name	Kimberley Tyler Rhodes
Born	August 9, 1965 Poughkeepsie New York, United States
Origin	Albany New York, United States
Genres	Alternative rock, art rock, acoustic, pop rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, vocalist, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Years active	1984–present
Associated acts	Project Lo, Bartlett/Rhodes, The Security Project

Happy Rhodes (born Kimberley Tyler Rhodes on August 9, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and electronic musician with a four-octave vocal range.

Born Kimberley Tyler Rhodes but called "Happy" since infancy, she legally changed her name to Happy Tyler Rhodes at age 16. Through her father, Vernon H. Rhodes Jr., Rhodes is a distant relative of Cecil Rhodes and her first name "Kimberley" is after the Kimberley diamond mines. Her middle name "Tyler" is after the American actress Mary Tyler Moore, who was a friend of Rhodes' mother, Susan D. Stamper, while both took dance classes at the New York City Ballet. Rhodes' maternal grandfather Dave Stamper wrote songs for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 through 1931 and composed the music for several other Broadway shows. A family legend claims that Stamper wrote the well-known song "Shine On, Harvest Moon" in 1903 for Nora Bayes when he was working as her Vaudeville piano accompanist, but sold the rights and credit to Bayes and her husband Jack Norworth. Rhodes' parents divorced when she was young. Rhodes has two brothers who are twins.

Rhodes received her first musical instrument, an acoustic guitar, as a gift from her mother, at age 11. At 14 she was performing original songs in school shows. She left school early at age 16, choosing to obtain a GED. From age 16 to 18, Rhodes began performing in "Open Mic Nights" at Caffè Lena in Saratoga, New York. During this period, Rhodes met Pat Tessitore, the owner of a recording studio, Cathedral Sound Studios in Rensselaer, and became a studio intern to learn recording techniques. Tessitore was impressed with Rhodes' voice and songwriting, and volunteered to record all of the songs she had written to that point.

Tessitore introduced Rhodes to Kevin Bartlett, a musician who had his own record label, Aural Gratification, and he urged her to gather up all the songs that she had recorded, to be released on cassette. She had enough songs to release three cassettes at the same time in 1986, Rhodes Vol. I, Rhodes Vol. II, and Rearmament. In 1987, she released the cassette of Ecto. Her first CD release was Warpaint, in 1991. The first four albums were only available on hand-dubbed cassettes until they were re-released on CD in 1992. For the CD releases, Rhodes Vol. I was renamed Rhodes I, and Rhodes Vol. II was renamed Rhodes II. Each of the CD re-releases contained bonus tracks not on the original cassettes. Aural Gratification released nine Happy Rhodes albums between 1986 and 1995, including Equipoise and RhodeSongs in 1993, Building The Colossus in 1994 and The Keep in 1995. Rhodes left Aural Gratification in 1998.