Arts & Life      

Posted on Sun, Mar. 02, 2008

Rhodes' Test: Lexington native lays it on line for country music

By Rich Copley

RCOPLEY@HERALD-LEADER.COM

NASHVILLE --

Amber Rhodes is on the phone, at a desk in a small office.

Occasionally, the Lexington native will say "OK" or "yeah" in reply. She's also sipping coffee and clicking the mouse on a desktop computer.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the life of an aspiring country music star.

The office is a little house on Nashville's legendary but quaint Music Row. The people on the other ends of the line for the Monday morning conference call are Rhodes' team -- promoters, publicists and managers.

"This town is filled with people who jumped into their cars with a guitar and came here hoping for the best," Rhodes says.

Her effort to land a recording contract is more organized than that.

Right now, Rhodes' calling cards are an independent album and a whole lot of energy. But she's also hooked up with Sharp Objects, an outfit that has organized a campaign to get Rhodes that record deal.

"Amber could be a household name in 11/2, two years," says Steven Sharp, founder and CEO of Sharp Objects.

His company works to launch artists like Rhodes, but its main business is song plugging -- getting tunes from its roster of writers into the hands of record labels and acts that can take them up the charts.

Songwriting is one of Rhodes' roles.

"Songwriters make a fine living," Rhodes says, "but something would be missing if I didn't have songwriting and performing."

Hence, Rhodes is playing shows and hitting the road.

"The goal," Sharp says, "is to create as much success as possible through radio play and performance so that when she sits down with a label, there will be a tsunami of success behind her."

Creating that storm means a lot of days like this Monday in Music City, when Rhodes' schedule is loaded with meetings, creative work like songwriting and a performance.

Though she went to Lexington's School for Creative and Performing Arts, this wasn't Rhodes career plan.

Going solo

Rhodes started at SCAPA in the drama program and ended up majoring in dance. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she still lives, with Broadway aspirations, like her lifelong friend Laura Bell Bundy.

New York auditions proved to be dispiriting to Rhodes, who says she was always "the last one cut. They'd say, 'Everyone stay, except you.'"

Meanwhile, another career opportunity was emerging, initially with Bundy. The pair were living together in Brooklyn and writing songs while Bundy was in the midst of her Broadway debut in Hairspray.

For Rhodes, it was a great setup because "I didn't think I was good enough to hold a show just being me. She was the front girl, and I was perfectly fine with that."

But behind the scenes, because Hairspray occupied a good portion of Bundy's time, Rhodes was doing a lot of work -- from writing music to making contacts.

When Bundy finished Hairspray, the pair's country music act was at a crossroads. Bundy was pursuing acting opportunities on the coasts, and the duo didn't fit into her plans; she needed to be California, Bundy told Rhodes.

"I had to say to myself, 'Are you just going to leave something you put five years of your life into?" Rhodes recalls. "That's when I started to do shows by myself."

Then Rhodes discovered she could be the front girl.

A certain level of success

Rhodes already had a relationship with New York-based Stray Dog Records, which she continued, and went to work writing and recording her solo debut in New York and at St. Claire Recording in Lexington.

But hers was a country project, and the road to country music success goes through Nashville.

There is debate among people surrounding Rhodes, and in her mind, on whether she needs to move to Music City. She loves living in New York but says she would make the move if it became clear to her that her residence was standing in the way of success.

What kind of success does she want? "I'd love to be like the Indigo Girls," Rhodes says. "Everyone knows who they are. Their lives are comfy and nice, but they are under the radar of celebrity."

And they are known for their music and their songwriting.

Taking time to write

Writing is precisely what Rhodes is set to do after her conference call with her team.

Songwriter Josh Rush rolls into the Sharp Objects offices with an acoustic guitar and a laptop computer.

Songwriting sessions can be like blind dates, Rhodes says, mainly because writers are looking for chemistry. "There are some times you go in and couldn't get an idea in your head if they waved a $100 bill in your face," she says.

Fortunately she and Rush have some ideas going. After some chatter and a pot of coffee, they retire to a little room where they go to work under posters of Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan.

Later that afternoon, Rhodes is in a meeting with Sharp and producer Jimmy Ritchey, one of several producers Rhodes is talking to about her next album.

"I got something I want you to hear," Sharp says. He plays a rough recording of Rhodes and Rush's work from that morning, a sad song about love not working out.

"A great song that should be on your next record," says Ritchey, a performer who has produced artists such as Clay Walker.

Rhodes is jazzed by her meeting with Ritchey. She likes how he talks about working to capture the best performance from an artist and how he wants to "help you make the album you want to make."

Rhodes, of course, has an album to sell now: Goodbye Yesterday. Her single, So Long, Goodbye has gotten as high as No. 49 on radio airplay charts.

On the radio and on stage

Getting that radio airplay has meant hitting the road and visiting stations for on-air interviews and performances. In three five-day road trips, Rhodes, a publicist and a guitar player visited 45 radio stations in 13 states.

"You're getting, like, three or four hours of sleep a night and driving really long distances," Rhodes says.

Sharp observes, "She's quite incredible to do that. Rarely do I see an artist with such a work ethic."

Right now, Rhodes' payoff is getting her song on the radio. There is a clear goal: landing that record deal. But it's not something Rhodes dwells on, not a subject she winds around to without prompting.

She enjoys chances to perform, even before a small Monday night crowd at a Nashville pub. So Long, Goodbye proves so infectious, another singer's guitarist starts to play along as Rhodes sings.

Coming off stage, she's greeting friends and associates and ready to head downtown for a nightcap.

"A lot of people forget to enjoy the journey," Rhodes says. "They dwell on negative things. I say, 'I'm so tired. Why am I tired?

"'I'm on the frickin' radio!'"