Rodd Keith

Rodd Keith is probably the best-known musician who worked in the song poem, or send-us-your-lyrics, industry; certainly, he was one of the most prolific. Keith grew up in a religious and musical family that formed a singing group and toured Midwest America's revival and church circuit, and even cut a few 78s. From an early age, he began playing various musical instruments and writing arrangements. He was later known for being able to play any instrument he picked up, and could play back a piece of music after hearing it once. After graduating from a religious school in Florida, he received a position in charge of a Baltimore church's music program. There he met his first wife, Roberta, and the two traveled the country as a keyboard duo, playing piano and organ. In Wichita, KS, they had a weekly live television program, Just a Song at Twilight, in the late '50s, and would write terrific new arrangements right before they would go on air. He was also a fan of jazz artists such as Stan Kenton, and his incorporation of modern harmonies didn't always go over well at churches. Their son, Ellery Eskelin, was born in 1959 in Wichita, and the family moved to Los Angeles not too long after. By 1961, Keith's wife and child returned to Baltimore. Eventually, he would remarry and have a daughter, Stacey, with his second wife Joni. Keith was a loved and loving man, by all accounts, but too easygoing and disinterested in the "real" world for family life, and his second wife left him, as well. On and off, from the mid-'60s until his death in 1974, Keith played keyboards, sang, and wrote music for the song poem industry. He considered this to be little more than a form of prostitution, but it was easy for him to make money at it while pursuing a lifestyle that included intense hallucinogen intake. Alternately he would work for a period, sometimes recording 30 songs in one day with no time for second takes, then stop working spend several days straight taking hallucinogens. His enjoyment of wordplay and story-telling grew under these influences, until he was almost impossible to understand. By the end of his life, he often spoke backwards, or in cryptic wordplay. At the end of 1974, he died after falling from an overpass. No one who knew him can agree on whether it was an accident, or intentional for a film scene idea he had mentioned two weeks earlier. Rodd Keith also recorded under the name Rod Rogers, and for many years, no song poem music collector was able to discover his real identity. Jazz saxophonist Ellery Eskelin found that people outside of his family had recordings of his eccentric father's music, and that Keith's music was highly regarded; indeed, that he was considered a genius. Surprised, Eskelin brought to light the story of his father, Rodney Keith Eskelin. His music appears on the compilations Beat of the Traps, and The Makers of Smooth Music, released on Carnage Press. In 1996, Tzadik released an entire CD of Rodd Keith's music called I Died Today.