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Sonny Rhodes(1940-2021)

  • Music Department
  • Soundtrack
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Blues guitarist Sonny Rhodes was born Clarence Smith in Smithville, TX, in 1940. He learned to play the guitar and bass as a young man. Joining the US Navy in 1957, he served one hitch and after his discharge he got work playing bass for such musicians as Freddie King and Albert Collins. In 1963 he left Texas for Califonia, settling in Oakland. He hooked up with a musician named L.C. Robinson (aka "Good Rockin' Robinson") who played the steel Hawaiian lap guitar. Robinson taught Rhodes how to play the instrument, which Rhodes had first heard played by Hop Wilson years before in Texas.

His proficiency on that instrument got him recording deals with a few small labels, but nothing really broke for him. While touring Europe in the late 1970s he recorded a pair of albums, "I Don't Want My Blues Colored Bright" and "Live in Europe". The next year he came out with "Forever and a Day", an album on which he was backed by the Paris National Symphony Orchestra. He has since recorded several more albums and has toured in both the US and Europe, where he has a very large fan base. He has also headlined at various blues festivals all over the US.
BornNovember 3, 1940
DiedDecember 14, 2021(81)
BornNovember 3, 1940
DiedDecember 14, 2021(81)
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Photos

Fran, David and Albert at the beach
Albert and David in a dramatic moment of the film
Albert, David and Fran in Montjuïc, Barcelona

Known for

Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Sean Maher, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, and Summer Glau in Firefly (2002)
Firefly
9.0
TV Series
  • Music Department
Da Vinci's Inquest (1998)
Da Vinci's Inquest
8.1
TV Series
  • Soundtrack("Shame on You")
Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Deuce (2017)
The Deuce
8.1
TV Series
  • Soundtrack("You Better Stop")

Credits

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IMDbPro

Music Department

  • Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Sean Maher, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, and Summer Glau in Firefly (2002)
    Firefly

Soundtrack

  • Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Deuce (2017)
    The Deuce
  • Mafia III (2016)
    Mafia III
    • (uncredited)
  • Titus Welliver in Bosch (2014)
    Bosch
    • (uncredited)
  • Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Sean Maher, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, and Summer Glau in Firefly (2002)
    Firefly
  • Da Vinci's Inquest (1998)
    Da Vinci's Inquest

Personal details

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    • November 3, 1940
    • Smithville, Texas, USA
    • December 14, 2021
  • Other works
    Album: "I Don't Want My Blues Colored Bright".

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