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Music Innovators— Harold Rhodes and the Fender Rhodes Electric Piano
Editors Note: The purpose of printing this article on Harold Rhodes, and the history of the Fender Rhodes Electric Piano, is to educate and inform our readers, and to introduce you to the fabulous modeling keyboard, the Nord Electro. Manufactured by Clavia, the Nord Electro is a stage keyboard focused on vintage instrument sounds -- specifically, sounds from popular electromechanical keyboards produced from the '50s to the '70s. The Fender Rhodes, along with the Hammond B-3 Organ, the Wurlitzer Electric Piano, the Clavinet, and several other widely used (and recorded!) electric pianos, is one of the excellent featured "sounds" faithfully reproduced by the sophisticated Nord. If we awarded stars for products, this one would get them all. It's a great musical instrument! 
From "The Story behind the Nord Electro" by Clavia: "The Genius of Harold Rhodes "The designer of the Rhodes Electric piano was Harold Rhodes. Harold had a background as piano teacher during the 1930s, when he ran a successful piano school. He also was an architectural engineering student and earned a scholarship to the University of Southern California's School of Architecture. Harold planned on minoring in music at USC, but he was drafted for the War and joined the Army Air Corps. "He had enrolled in a flight instructors' course, but the Army closed the school one day before he was to begin his training. Harold started teaching his Army friends piano lessons and was spotted by a surgeon who enjoyed his talent for piano instructions. The doctor asked Harold to help rehabilitate wounded soldiers with a piano method he had developed... As no pianos were available that were small and light enough to fit on the lap of someone in bed, he designed and built instruments out of recycled aeroplane parts and self-made keyboards. His therapeutic project was a success and the War department started to manufacture the piano, which was called the 'Xylette.' "After the war, Harold started his own business and pursued his idea of making a compact, lightweight piano. In 1946 he released the Pre-Piano, an inexpensive three-octave instrument with a tone somewhat like a toy piano. It was primarily aimed for home and educational market, but it failed in the marketplace because of poor manufacturing. Shortly thereafter, Harold invented the 'tine,' or asymmetric tuning fork, which he later used to make a 72-key instrument built inside a cabinet that looked like a baby grand piano. "In 1959, Harold met a man named Leo Fender and they decided to do something together. Leo had developed the Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and had a great knowledge of amplifying strings. Together these two gentlemen could develop a great electric piano. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn't cooperate in the way Harold wanted because Leo didn't like the sound of the treble tines. As a result, between 1959 and 1965, they released only one model, a 32-note bass version called Piano Bass. Nevertheless, during this period Harold continued to develop his ideas further and contructed an 88-note electronic piano. "In January 1965, the large corporation CBS bought the Fender Company and, as a result, Harold Rhodes finally got the opportunity to put his newly designed instrument into serious production. The [premier] model is called the Fender Rhodes Suitcase 73, where the '73' stands for the number of keys on the piano. This model had a built-in pre-amp, amplifier, and speakers. Although Leo Fender was no longer part of the company, CBS decided to use both of the gentlemen's names in conjunction with the product, supposedly for marketing reasons. Fender was a big name at the time—and still is. Interestingly enough, Fender actually joined the company later on again for a period of time, and it seems that Harold and Leo together developed a new tone generator for the Fender Rhodes electric piano. As a result, they filed a joint patent on August 4th, 1970..." See A Memorial to Harold Rhodes (1910 - 2000) here. See Freddan Adlers' terrific Fender Rhodes website here.
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