About

Richard Pfahl- Musician and Songwriter

Greetings! What a shame and a loss to the world it would be if all forms of analog art, photography, music and so on created by people everywhere were allowed to continue their decay, eventually thrown away or lost to obscurity. Even more of a shame is that this is happening to so many peoples’ bodies of work, their lives’ creations, at a time that it is cheaper and easier than ever to archive such data on the internet.

Realizing this, I set to work to find and digitize as much of my father’s music from its various analog formats. Literally digging up the past to try to find the reel to reels, tapes and acetate recordings that exist and safely transform them into digital files that can be listened to by anyone who chooses. Archiving the stories, photos and musical body of work while such is still possible was the original inspiration behind this websites creation.

Stan Pfahl, The Father of Richard and an Inspirational Man

Musically, Stan is the first of three generations of men in this family who played, and held a lifelong interest music, but he was much more than that. As a young boy, he had big dreams, some would say unconventional dreams, but it was clear he was interested in doing more than sitting at a desk in life. He had wanted to be a traveling hobo, which was not a bad word in those days as it seems it has become. He had a love for country music, and played his own on his guitar, a yellow bodied acoustic guitar with a decorated pick guard.

Unfortunately WWII cut his dreams short. He had just had his first child before the war, and as a man who believed in his duty, waited for himself to be drafted into service and sent to where he was most needed. That turned out to be Papua New Guinea, a place most people do not associate with WWII, because other than those who were there, it is not mentioned much in the history of the war. The men stationed there were waiting to go fight the Japanese, and were not expected to live through the fight they were going to be called into. Fortunately, they were called home before that happened, due to the bombs dropped on Japan ending the need for the American fighters waiting in the south pacific.

Though he spent much of his time there in a state of dread, seemingly waiting for impending doom, Paupau New Guniea had clearly left a mark on him more than just the negative. Later when his grandson asked him about the war, he replied in a stern tone “what do you want to know about that for?” but then calmed down and brought out the globe and showed where he was stationed, instructing the young boy to learn all that he could about that place.

After he came home from the war, by boat from Papua New Guinea, he soon had another child, Richard Pfahl, whom he shared at least one interest with, a love of music and the guitar. He had contracted malaria during the war which required him to stay away from intense heat, barring him from a potential job in the steel industry as so many others in their city, Cleveland, worked in. Though the job he took at the telephone company paid half as much, in retrospect it is lucky he avoided potentially early death from steel mill work. He was also a singer and used his music to attempt to lighten the mood around the house. When his wife was set on fighting or complaining he was known to come into the room with an accordion and serenade her with a song, usually met with her chagrin.

Richard E Pfahl

Rich and his father Stan might have had their differences as so many fathers and their sons, but he shared at least one thing with his old man, and that was the love of music. His dad gifted him a guitar when he was 4, with it telling him, go learn this and get some of that music money when you get older.

Once he was a teenager, Rich formed a band with friends from the neighborhood, under the name Jonny and the Vicounts, and they dedicated themselves to playing gigs out as soon as they could. Though none of them were yet old enough to drive, Stan drove them to their gigs until they were old enough to get their on their own, even renting out the local event space for them at first for them to get out there and get heard.

The band’s lineup might have changed over the years, the names the members went by or even the band itself no matter the lineup, Rich continued playing in the Cleveland music scene, and remains friends with fellow band-mates from the early years to this day. They were meeting others in the music scene there that shared their passion and some of those people went on to become household names. As far as Rich and his band-mates, they continued taking gigs and took their show on the road at times as well, playing gigs as far away as in Key West, FL.

A New Era

Rich did not only find his joy and his friends through his music, it also led him to find the love of his life. As the story goes, his band was playing a show at the bar Coral Gables, which looks nearly the same today as it did then. As he was waiting to use the pay phone in the bar, one of the bartenders there said to him, why not just come up to my apartment and use the phone there? They hit it off, and from then on they were dating, eventually getting married and having a son whom is named after his father.

Rich was a songwriter at times too, having made a few jingles for local businesses that played on the Holland local tv channel commercials. Though he had made some money in music and he enjoyed what he did, words once spoken by his father in law continued to echo in his head, “when are you going to put down that guitar and get a real job?” He decided on a “real job” to take on, and went to appraisal school. That remained his main business over the years until retirement, but he never strayed from playing music in his spare time, really any time that he could.

A Third Generation Musician

Richard E Pfahl II, who goes by Rick, enjoyed his father’s musical career as far back as he can remember. They would travel as a family up to Manistee and Ludington where he had regular gigs, and young Rick enjoyed the adventure, the staying in different hotels where his dad was playing music. At the age of 12 he was given his own guitar for christmas, and began to play.

Rick and his father have butted heads at many points in his life but his father always supported his playing of music. Piano lessons were gifted to him as a young man, and as piano does, enabled him to get a firm understanding of the mechanics of music in his head and learn to read music as well.

He joined orchestra in school and played cello there, and enjoyed tinkering with his father’s various mixing boards and equipment in fascination, learning how they worked. In his own teenage years he put together a band amongst his friends and had everything they needed to practice together and record in his home in the basement, where they recorded their first tracks before moving as a band to Chicago.

A New Chapter Unfolds

Now that Rich is retired and has more time to dedicate to his music once again he has been taking gigs around town, performing as a solo act singing and playing the guitar. Most recently he has undergone the construction of a new and fully functional music production studio in his home to record his work and potentially others’ in the future. Keep an eye on where Rich goes from here, as he hopes to see more of you out at his gigs in town and put up tracks he records on his SoundCloud and MixCloud pages.

Get in Touch

In the meantime, check back often to keep up with what is coming up next, and please feel free to reach out to Rich directly if you like. He can be reached by email at [email protected] and by phone at 616-594-9220.

Let’s build something amazing together!