10 Artists With Incredible Gaps Between Studio Albums

A cult figure to fans of psychedelia, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emitt Rhodes deserves to be far more widely known. Described in his obituary (Rhodes passed in 2020) as "the one-man Beatles" due to his imagination and ability, Rhodes began his career at just 14, with the group The Merry-Go-Round, who released their sole album in 1967.

Rhodes went on to release three distinctive solo albums, a self-titled effort in 1970, followed by Mirror (1971) and Farewell to Paradise (1973). For each of these albums, Rhodes played all the instruments, composed all the songs and recorded all the cuts himself on a 4-track recorder. At that point, despite critical acclaim, his career stalled, largely due to Rhodes' understandable inability, as a one-man outfit, to meet the punishing release schedule demanded by his record label.

Though he continued to write and record songs, Rhodes did not release any material for over four decades. During that time he worked as a recording engineer and producer for Elektra records, and came close to achieving new album releases, in both 1978 and 2000, before the projects stalled (in the former case due to the firing of the A&R man who had approved the recording, in the latter due the label concerned shutting down before completion).

In 2009, following the success of a well-received documentary about his life (The One-Man Beatles), Rhodes finally entered a recording studio with a new band and new material. Several individual songs resulted and, after a gap of 43 years, a full album, Rainbow Ends, was finally released