Michael Rhodes

Michael Rhodes, a first-call studio musician who won 10 ACM Awards as a bassist, died on March 4, 2023. He was 69. Rhodes was born in Monroe, Louisiana, and taught himself to play guitar around age 11. After a period of time living in Memphis, Austin, and Los Angeles, he moved to Nashville, where his funky style and adaptability led to a job as a demo session player for Tree Publishing in the late 1970s.Producers soon sought him out for major label projects and he received his first of 17 ACM nominations as a bassist in 1987.Rhodes was named a Nashville Cat by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2015; he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019