Robert John Hafner, 1932-2013
'60s songwriter plunged into surf music craze
By Joan Giangrasse Kates, Special to the Chicago Tribune
20 October 2013
Robert John Hafner, a songwriter, musician and producer, didn't just catch the wave of California surf music, he helped create it.
Mr. Hafner wrote songs recorded by the surf band The Revels and also the number "Comanche," which was used in the movie "Pulp Fiction."
"He definitely has his place in history," Robert Dalley, a music historian who has written a book on surf music, told the Tribune in 1995. "He had a style of his own that was translated to surf."
Earl Stone, a former Los Angeles record producer who worked with Mr. Hafner in the late 1950s, said in the same Tribune profile that Mr. Hafner was "very original and very ahead of his time."
But in the mid- to late 1960s, Mr. Hafner walked away from the music scene, turned off by the hippie movement, the drug culture and the corporate takeover of music. He eventually moved to Lake County and worked as a house painter for more than two decades.
"He was tremendously creative, but he didn't have that other side, where he was willing to sell himself," said his wife of 44 years, Barbara. "He didn't want, or have the finesse, to compromise what he believed in when it came to his music."
Mr. Hafner, 81, of Ingleside, died of heart failure Sunday, Oct. 13, in Centegra Memorial Medical Center in McHenry.
"Bob was versed in so many subjects he had something to say about everything," said Dan MacGillis, mayor of Round Lake, which is near Ingleside. "The best thing was how he'd pull a story from his own interesting life experiences to fit every occasion. Our conversations revolved around everything — politics, current events, sports, you name it."
Mr. Hafner wrote the song "Comanche" in 1959 for a jazz orchestra. It was it was first used in a movie about Native Americans called "The Exiles." Then in 1994 it was part of the soundtrack for "Pulp Fiction," though not in a way that pleased Mr. Hafner, according to the 1995 Tribune story. It is the background music in a particularly violent scene after the characters played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames are taken prisoner in a pawnshop.
"I was offended by it," Mr. Hafner said. "I wrote that song to be idealist about the plight of the American Indian."
Born in Coatsville, Pa., Mr. Hafner and his parents moved to Los Angeles in 1939. As a boy, he would go with his mother to hear Latin music downtown. They would walk past used-record stores and pawnshops with guitars in the window, and he would sneak peeks inside bars and clubs with blues and jazz music wafting out from inside.
He joined a jazz swing band in high school after his father gave him his first guitar, and after high school played briefly with a jazz band on a radio talent show. But he gave up guitar to go into theater and attended college for three months before quitting.
Mr. Hafner moved to New York and tried to get into the Actors Studio, but instead took a job as a painter. According to the 1995 Tribune story, he had a premonition while living there that his mother was going to die and returned to Los Angeles about two weeks before her death.
His father died shortly afterward, and Mr. Hafner was broke, devastated and on skid row when he ran into an old acquaintance, who helped get him work in the music business as a songwriter and musical arranger, which led to work with The Revels.
The surf sound came about unintentionally, around 1959, when The Revels did a song called "Luau," which used a steel slide guitar and had a heavy echo sound, which was later to become a standard part of surf music. He wrote and recorded quickly, sometimes producing an album in less than a day.
"As a songwriter, he could write a song when a group needed it," Dalley told the Tribune in 1995. "He could just pick up a guitar and write a song. It's a very rare talent. It's something that set Bob apart from the others."
After he left the music business, he and his wife-to-be were living in Idaho, where they were married in 1969. He worked as a painter there as well, and the couple moved to the Chicago area in 1982 to be closer to her parents. He stopped writing music in the late 1990s.
"Some of his best music is found in the ballads he wrote and recorded but never released," his wife said. "His ballads are very melodic, with a spiritual undertone, and the lyrics are wonderfully poetic. They aren't syrupy love songs, but more about everyday people and appreciating the simple things in life."
Mr. Hafner also is survived by a daughter, Celeste Schuelke.
Services have been held.
'60s songwriter plunged into surf music craze
By Joan Giangrasse Kates, Special to the Chicago Tribune
20 October 2013
Robert John Hafner, a songwriter, musician and producer, didn't just catch the wave of California surf music, he helped create it.
Mr. Hafner wrote songs recorded by the surf band The Revels and also the number "Comanche," which was used in the movie "Pulp Fiction."
"He definitely has his place in history," Robert Dalley, a music historian who has written a book on surf music, told the Tribune in 1995. "He had a style of his own that was translated to surf."
Earl Stone, a former Los Angeles record producer who worked with Mr. Hafner in the late 1950s, said in the same Tribune profile that Mr. Hafner was "very original and very ahead of his time."
But in the mid- to late 1960s, Mr. Hafner walked away from the music scene, turned off by the hippie movement, the drug culture and the corporate takeover of music. He eventually moved to Lake County and worked as a house painter for more than two decades.
"He was tremendously creative, but he didn't have that other side, where he was willing to sell himself," said his wife of 44 years, Barbara. "He didn't want, or have the finesse, to compromise what he believed in when it came to his music."
Mr. Hafner, 81, of Ingleside, died of heart failure Sunday, Oct. 13, in Centegra Memorial Medical Center in McHenry.
"Bob was versed in so many subjects he had something to say about everything," said Dan MacGillis, mayor of Round Lake, which is near Ingleside. "The best thing was how he'd pull a story from his own interesting life experiences to fit every occasion. Our conversations revolved around everything — politics, current events, sports, you name it."
Mr. Hafner wrote the song "Comanche" in 1959 for a jazz orchestra. It was it was first used in a movie about Native Americans called "The Exiles." Then in 1994 it was part of the soundtrack for "Pulp Fiction," though not in a way that pleased Mr. Hafner, according to the 1995 Tribune story. It is the background music in a particularly violent scene after the characters played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames are taken prisoner in a pawnshop.
"I was offended by it," Mr. Hafner said. "I wrote that song to be idealist about the plight of the American Indian."
Born in Coatsville, Pa., Mr. Hafner and his parents moved to Los Angeles in 1939. As a boy, he would go with his mother to hear Latin music downtown. They would walk past used-record stores and pawnshops with guitars in the window, and he would sneak peeks inside bars and clubs with blues and jazz music wafting out from inside.
He joined a jazz swing band in high school after his father gave him his first guitar, and after high school played briefly with a jazz band on a radio talent show. But he gave up guitar to go into theater and attended college for three months before quitting.
Mr. Hafner moved to New York and tried to get into the Actors Studio, but instead took a job as a painter. According to the 1995 Tribune story, he had a premonition while living there that his mother was going to die and returned to Los Angeles about two weeks before her death.
His father died shortly afterward, and Mr. Hafner was broke, devastated and on skid row when he ran into an old acquaintance, who helped get him work in the music business as a songwriter and musical arranger, which led to work with The Revels.
The surf sound came about unintentionally, around 1959, when The Revels did a song called "Luau," which used a steel slide guitar and had a heavy echo sound, which was later to become a standard part of surf music. He wrote and recorded quickly, sometimes producing an album in less than a day.
"As a songwriter, he could write a song when a group needed it," Dalley told the Tribune in 1995. "He could just pick up a guitar and write a song. It's a very rare talent. It's something that set Bob apart from the others."
After he left the music business, he and his wife-to-be were living in Idaho, where they were married in 1969. He worked as a painter there as well, and the couple moved to the Chicago area in 1982 to be closer to her parents. He stopped writing music in the late 1990s.
"Some of his best music is found in the ballads he wrote and recorded but never released," his wife said. "His ballads are very melodic, with a spiritual undertone, and the lyrics are wonderfully poetic. They aren't syrupy love songs, but more about everyday people and appreciating the simple things in life."
Mr. Hafner also is survived by a daughter, Celeste Schuelke.
Services have been held.
Robert John Hafner, 1932-2013
'60s songwriter plunged into surf music craze
By Joan Giangrasse Kates, Special to the Chicago Tribune
20 October 2013
Robert John Hafner, a songwriter, musician and producer, didn't just catch the wave of California surf music, he helped create it.
Mr. Hafner wrote songs recorded by the surf band The Revels and also the number "Comanche," which was used in the movie "Pulp Fiction."
"He definitely has his place in history," Robert Dalley, a music historian who has written a book on surf music, told the Tribune in 1995. "He had a style of his own that was translated to surf."
Earl Stone, a former Los Angeles record producer who worked with Mr. Hafner in the late 1950s, said in the same Tribune profile that Mr. Hafner was "very original and very ahead of his time."
But in the mid- to late 1960s, Mr. Hafner walked away from the music scene, turned off by the hippie movement, the drug culture and the corporate takeover of music. He eventually moved to Lake County and worked as a house painter for more than two decades.
"He was tremendously creative, but he didn't have that other side, where he was willing to sell himself," said his wife of 44 years, Barbara. "He didn't want, or have the finesse, to compromise what he believed in when it came to his music."
Mr. Hafner, 81, of Ingleside, died of heart failure Sunday, Oct. 13, in Centegra Memorial Medical Center in McHenry.
"Bob was versed in so many subjects he had something to say about everything," said Dan MacGillis, mayor of Round Lake, which is near Ingleside. "The best thing was how he'd pull a story from his own interesting life experiences to fit every occasion. Our conversations revolved around everything — politics, current events, sports, you name it."
Mr. Hafner wrote the song "Comanche" in 1959 for a jazz orchestra. It was it was first used in a movie about Native Americans called "The Exiles." Then in 1994 it was part of the soundtrack for "Pulp Fiction," though not in a way that pleased Mr. Hafner, according to the 1995 Tribune story. It is the background music in a particularly violent scene after the characters played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames are taken prisoner in a pawnshop.
"I was offended by it," Mr. Hafner said. "I wrote that song to be idealist about the plight of the American Indian."
Born in Coatsville, Pa., Mr. Hafner and his parents moved to Los Angeles in 1939. As a boy, he would go with his mother to hear Latin music downtown. They would walk past used-record stores and pawnshops with guitars in the window, and he would sneak peeks inside bars and clubs with blues and jazz music wafting out from inside.
He joined a jazz swing band in high school after his father gave him his first guitar, and after high school played briefly with a jazz band on a radio talent show. But he gave up guitar to go into theater and attended college for three months before quitting.
Mr. Hafner moved to New York and tried to get into the Actors Studio, but instead took a job as a painter. According to the 1995 Tribune story, he had a premonition while living there that his mother was going to die and returned to Los Angeles about two weeks before her death.
His father died shortly afterward, and Mr. Hafner was broke, devastated and on skid row when he ran into an old acquaintance, who helped get him work in the music business as a songwriter and musical arranger, which led to work with The Revels.
The surf sound came about unintentionally, around 1959, when The Revels did a song called "Luau," which used a steel slide guitar and had a heavy echo sound, which was later to become a standard part of surf music. He wrote and recorded quickly, sometimes producing an album in less than a day.
"As a songwriter, he could write a song when a group needed it," Dalley told the Tribune in 1995. "He could just pick up a guitar and write a song. It's a very rare talent. It's something that set Bob apart from the others."
After he left the music business, he and his wife-to-be were living in Idaho, where they were married in 1969. He worked as a painter there as well, and the couple moved to the Chicago area in 1982 to be closer to her parents. He stopped writing music in the late 1990s.
"Some of his best music is found in the ballads he wrote and recorded but never released," his wife said. "His ballads are very melodic, with a spiritual undertone, and the lyrics are wonderfully poetic. They aren't syrupy love songs, but more about everyday people and appreciating the simple things in life."
Mr. Hafner also is survived by a daughter, Celeste Schuelke.
Services have been held.
'60s songwriter plunged into surf music craze
By Joan Giangrasse Kates, Special to the Chicago Tribune
20 October 2013
Robert John Hafner, a songwriter, musician and producer, didn't just catch the wave of California surf music, he helped create it.
Mr. Hafner wrote songs recorded by the surf band The Revels and also the number "Comanche," which was used in the movie "Pulp Fiction."
"He definitely has his place in history," Robert Dalley, a music historian who has written a book on surf music, told the Tribune in 1995. "He had a style of his own that was translated to surf."
Earl Stone, a former Los Angeles record producer who worked with Mr. Hafner in the late 1950s, said in the same Tribune profile that Mr. Hafner was "very original and very ahead of his time."
But in the mid- to late 1960s, Mr. Hafner walked away from the music scene, turned off by the hippie movement, the drug culture and the corporate takeover of music. He eventually moved to Lake County and worked as a house painter for more than two decades.
"He was tremendously creative, but he didn't have that other side, where he was willing to sell himself," said his wife of 44 years, Barbara. "He didn't want, or have the finesse, to compromise what he believed in when it came to his music."
Mr. Hafner, 81, of Ingleside, died of heart failure Sunday, Oct. 13, in Centegra Memorial Medical Center in McHenry.
"Bob was versed in so many subjects he had something to say about everything," said Dan MacGillis, mayor of Round Lake, which is near Ingleside. "The best thing was how he'd pull a story from his own interesting life experiences to fit every occasion. Our conversations revolved around everything — politics, current events, sports, you name it."
Mr. Hafner wrote the song "Comanche" in 1959 for a jazz orchestra. It was it was first used in a movie about Native Americans called "The Exiles." Then in 1994 it was part of the soundtrack for "Pulp Fiction," though not in a way that pleased Mr. Hafner, according to the 1995 Tribune story. It is the background music in a particularly violent scene after the characters played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames are taken prisoner in a pawnshop.
"I was offended by it," Mr. Hafner said. "I wrote that song to be idealist about the plight of the American Indian."
Born in Coatsville, Pa., Mr. Hafner and his parents moved to Los Angeles in 1939. As a boy, he would go with his mother to hear Latin music downtown. They would walk past used-record stores and pawnshops with guitars in the window, and he would sneak peeks inside bars and clubs with blues and jazz music wafting out from inside.
He joined a jazz swing band in high school after his father gave him his first guitar, and after high school played briefly with a jazz band on a radio talent show. But he gave up guitar to go into theater and attended college for three months before quitting.
Mr. Hafner moved to New York and tried to get into the Actors Studio, but instead took a job as a painter. According to the 1995 Tribune story, he had a premonition while living there that his mother was going to die and returned to Los Angeles about two weeks before her death.
His father died shortly afterward, and Mr. Hafner was broke, devastated and on skid row when he ran into an old acquaintance, who helped get him work in the music business as a songwriter and musical arranger, which led to work with The Revels.
The surf sound came about unintentionally, around 1959, when The Revels did a song called "Luau," which used a steel slide guitar and had a heavy echo sound, which was later to become a standard part of surf music. He wrote and recorded quickly, sometimes producing an album in less than a day.
"As a songwriter, he could write a song when a group needed it," Dalley told the Tribune in 1995. "He could just pick up a guitar and write a song. It's a very rare talent. It's something that set Bob apart from the others."
After he left the music business, he and his wife-to-be were living in Idaho, where they were married in 1969. He worked as a painter there as well, and the couple moved to the Chicago area in 1982 to be closer to her parents. He stopped writing music in the late 1990s.
"Some of his best music is found in the ballads he wrote and recorded but never released," his wife said. "His ballads are very melodic, with a spiritual undertone, and the lyrics are wonderfully poetic. They aren't syrupy love songs, but more about everyday people and appreciating the simple things in life."
Mr. Hafner also is survived by a daughter, Celeste Schuelke.
Services have been held.
