Song of the Day 7/31: Emitt Rhodes, “Fresh as a Daisy”

Sunshine pop lost a legendary cult figure two weeks ago with the death of Emitt Rhodes, once touted as the “one-man Beatles.” When he released his eponymous debut LP in 1970 it sounded as if Paul McCartney was working under an alias. No song on the album, which reached No. 29 on the Billboard chart, wore its Macca influence more boldly than the lead single, “Fresh as a Daisy,” which somehow reached only No. 54 on the singles chart.

That Beatlesque sound wasn’t a one-off, either. The album consists of one hook-filled tune after another, and more than a few sound like songs that might have been left off the White Album. What was most amazing was Rhodes’ versatility — he played all the instruments and sang all the vocal parts himself, in a home studio he built in his parents’ shed in Hawthorne, Calif., not far from where the Wilson brothers had grown up. He was all of 20 years old.

That record, sadly, was the highlight of his career. Another record company still had tapes of the group he led as a teenager, the Merry-Go-Round, and released an LP after the success of “Emitt Rhodes,” before Rhodes himself could record a follow-up of his own. He was 17 when the band made this TV appearance.

Unfortunately, the competing releases confused consumers. He eventually made two more albums for ABC/Dunhill, but neither sold nearly so well. Worse, each took about a year to make — he was writing, playing and recording everything himself — in violation of his contract, which called for a then-standard two albums per year. His record company actually sued Rhodes for $250,000 over it and seized his royalties, leaving him essentially broke. He responded by quitting recording completely. He worked as a recording engineer for Elektra Records, and though he made periodic efforts to record another album, they always were derailed.

Rhodes’ early solo records were not forgotten by fans, who rightly compared his work to Todd Rundgren as well as McCartney for both its one-man-band aspects and its proto-power-pop sensibilities. One dedicated fan, after cultivating a relationship with the reclusive Rhodes for several years, convinced him to try again, resulting in 2016’s “Rainbow Ends.” That LP reveals a singer who has mellowed into an adult-contemporary singer-songwriter who could still craft a hook.