[atlantaprog] NAMM

Hi, all.

I just got back from NAMM in Anaheim, California.
Besides telling you that I got to hang with Patrick Moraz, here's the big news:
The Rhodes electromechanical piano is back. The real thing, totally mechanical and analog, based on the Mark V from 1968. 

http://www.rhodespiano.com/
Prices will start around $2K. You can get 'em in fire-engine red or Alpine white if you don't like black.
George Duke, Jeff Lorber and Patrice Rushen were there to debut it, and I got to see Stevie Wonder play one in their booth.
It was rather like stepping out of the helicopter in Jurassic Park and seeing a real live apatosaur.
I wish this company a lot of luck. It must have been horrendously expensive to re-create all the tooling from scratch, since the last Rhodes were made in the early 70s and the original factory and tools were doubtless destroyed. Will enough people buy this thing to keep the company afloat?
Harold Rhodes himself started this project, but he passed away a couple of years ago before it could see fruition.
It's rather like the story of Bob Moog, which I'll save for a later post. [I'm friends with the Moog family and I'm doing some work for the Moog Foundation, which is one of the reasons I went to NAMM]. 

More later,

Wheat Williams

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