If you nev­er knew Chris Gaffney, I’m not sure that this lit­tle eulo­gy is going to help any. To tell the truth, I didn’t know Chris very well — at least, as well as oth­ers — or for very long. But the mem­o­ries I have of him are just as good as any…and they feel good writ­ing them down.

I met Chris while play­ing in what was to become the Hacien­da Broth­ers. Born from an ​“all-star” band of sorts, the ear­ly ver­sion of the Hacien­da Broth­ers fea­tured Chris Gaffney, Dave Gon­za­les, and Ted­dy Mor­gan. We had a lot of trou­ble set­tling on a name. Chris’s sug­ges­tion? The Axis of Evil. Per­fect. I think up until the day he died Chris was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed that name didn’t get picked.

Chris was always a lot of fun, even when he wasn’t. He loved music but hat­ed being in the stu­dio. I like to think that lis­ten­ing to that first record I can hear the dif­fer­ence between the first takes — when he still want­ed to be there — ver­sus any­thing lat­er. Chris was the kind of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve, no mat­ter what shape it was in. 

I had a lot of fun talk­ing with Chris on the road. He would tell me com­plete­ly ran­dom sto­ries about his box­ing career or his war career or his music career; sto­ries that, look­ing back, make me real­ize that it’s sur­pris­ing this is the first time Chris has died. He’s lived enough lives to have done it a few times, at least. 

One of the sweet­est and most mean­ing­ful things ever said to me was from him. ​“Richard,” he said, ​“I know I’m not your real grand­fa­ther but if it’s okay with you I’d like to be your musi­cal grand-dad.”

“You can’t be my grand­fa­ther,” I said. ​“You’re the same age as my dad.”

“Well,” he said. ​“We’ll work some­thing out.”