Fender Rhodes 73
The flat-top electric piano that showed up in studio inventories and classified columns alike — and rarely stayed listed for long.
Overview
The Rhodes 73 turns up in the period record less as a headline instrument than as a fixture. Scan the equipment lists of Canadian recording studios from the era and the name appears again and again — Le Studio in Morin Heights kept a Fender Rhodes 73 alongside its Yamaha grands, a Hohner Clavinet, and congas; PSM in Québec City listed one in its room inventory; Les Studios Sud kept an acoustic piano and Arp Odyssey on hand. That's the tell. When a piano shows up in the "instruments supplied" line of a studio directory, it isn't there because it's exotic. It's there because every session needs one and the clients expect it to be in tune and ready.
The "73" in the name refers to the keyboard's compass — 73 keys, the smaller of the two Rhodes configurations that dominated the market. Players who wanted the full span went to the 88; everyone else bought the 73, which was lighter to move, cheaper to buy, and covered everything a working keyboardist actually played. The period classifieds bear this out. A Stage 73 in good condition turns up at £200 in one Electronics & Music Maker column; a Stage 73 MkII described as mint and home-use-only asks £270; a MkIII suitcase version, immaculate, goes for £395 ono. The spread tracks condition, variant, and how badly the seller needed the cash — not any difference in the instrument's fundamental appeal. The period trade press of the era, as in Sound-on-Sound-UK (March 1997, p.305), catalogued the era's gear with a similar matter-of-fact tone.
What the Rhodes 73 is not, in the period sources, is a prestige object. It's a tool. The studio listings treat it as standard furniture. The classifieds treat it as something to be moved on when the owner upgrades or quits gigging. A dealer listing from the same era quotes a new Suitcase 73 at £750 against a used Rhodes 73 at £425 — the used market ran at roughly half of new, which tells you these pianos depreciated like the working instruments they were, not like collectibles. That's the honest picture: the Rhodes 73 earned its place by being the piano that was always there, in the corner of the studio or the back of the van, doing the job without complaint.
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