00:00Yeah, Rhodes is a very famous electric piano brand from the 70s made famous by
00:06the likes of Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, The Doors,
00:12Led Zeppelin. Originally a US company, the electric piano was created by Harold
00:20Rhodes in the 40s. He was actually in the in the Air Force and he
00:28invented the electric piano as a tool for recovering veterans in the hospitals,
00:34a portable piano. He made the electric piano originally, so he's the inventor of
00:40the electric piano. In the 70s and 80s, early 80s, the pianos were built at a
00:48rate of up to 30,000 a year. It was the number one portable electric piano and
00:55super funky, soulful sound. In the 80s, the synths came along and the Fender
01:03Rhodes, as it was then, struggled against the competition. Harold unfortunately
01:08died in the 90s and it was passed to the trademark owner, Joseph Branstetter, who
01:15had a go in the early 2000s with the Rhodes and didn't quite make it work.
01:20Through a long story that we haven't got time for now, I got the opportunity to
01:26take over the brand, which seemed a crazy idea because I come from the music
01:31software world. After speaking with our CPO, Dan Goldman, who is a fantastic
01:39keyboard player and lives and breathes Rhodes from day to day, I was convinced
01:45that it was the right thing to do. So we built a factory in Leeds in Meanwood
01:50where we are today and we've been building these pianos at a very much
01:56lesser rate than the 30,000 a year, but in a more artisan style for the last
02:02four years. The Rhodes Marquette is the piano that comes out of Leeds now in the UK.
02:08Whereabouts do people buy them?
02:11So we sell a lot direct through our website RhodesMusic.com. You can go and
02:18customise your own piano there. We've got a lot of ways that you can customise
02:22the top, the base, and how the piano looks and feels. We also have dealers
02:28around the world, but we aim to sell up to a maximum of 500 pianos a year, so it's
02:34quite a niche business. But we've moved into software now, so you can also get a
02:40faithful replication of a Rhodes Marquette piano in software for your
02:44computer too.
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