I've known Riff since 1979. He played bass in the first band I saw in a club when I was 18, a band with a couple albums called White Witch. Riff's always been a star on the scene here in central Florida. One of my favorite bass players ever...real in your face and busy but totally solid. Did a lot of really good stuff besides playing with Molly Hatchet and Foghat, too...he did a lot of charity work for our local animal shelters, and one year he even got Ritchie Blackmore to do a couple songs at his fundraiser at the Hard Rock Cafe. Always used cheap basses, never saw him use a Fender unless it was a guitar, always sounded great. He started with the Ric 3001 in that pic above, but also had a Hondo II Longhorn copy, then with Foghat he had some Ibanez bass. Later on, he co-owned a large backline company called Downtown Sound, and he played with the band Gator Country, which was like 5 guys from Hatchet plus Paul Chapman from UFO. Didn't work with him much but I did do a couple gigs with him over the years and we used to rent from Downtown Sound pretty often. He was a really great guy who had his stuff together and was a big influence on me. I used to tell him that and he'd get a little embarrassed by it but I'm glad I got to tell him.
Here's a really good clip of him with Hatchet.
Link Removed < should get you to Video on Riff's obit wall. Peace. Terri
