JAMIE LAMMERS
LYONS — Musicians don’t build their legacies overnight. They learn, they tour, they perform, and they sometimes stumble into their defining moments. Rhythm and blues musician Chris Daniels and soul musician Freddi Gowdy have built their legacies over decades.
The Minnesota-born Daniels first settled in Colorado in 1971, joining the first Colorado jam band, Magic Music. Returning after his studies at Macalester College in St. Paul and Berklee College of Music in Boston, he founded the rock band Spoons.
He recalls that in 1984, Spoons drummer Andy Peake suggested forming a band with a horn section. “We were gonna do it one night,” recalls Daniels, “and as the old joke goes: ‘Be careful with one-night stands, they can last forty-two years.”
In 2026, Chris Daniels and the Kings, the first full-time Colorado band to prominently feature a horn section, celebrates its forty-second anniversary.
Meanwhile, Gowdy’s long-term band came to Colorado from Phoenix, Arizona. Forming the soul group Freddie Love and the Soulsetters with Marvin “Henchi” Graves in 1965, the group performed throughout Arizona and California until an agent booked them in Colorado.
“California was fine for recording and doing some of the live shows with some of the big guys,” states Gowdy, “but we found out we liked Colorado better, so we stayed.”
Arriving in Boulder in 1970 and changing their name to the Freddi-Henchi Band, the group performed through the decades as a headlining act.
Known as a party band in the area, the Freddi-Henchi Band created the club Good Earth in Boulder, booking various acts throughout its run, including Magic Music.
Around 2012, Daniels asked Gowdy to perform with the Kings, and Gowdy, selective in the groups he’s joined over the decades, accepted the offer. Both musicians have admired each other since their early Colorado performances, and that admiration is still strong.
“He brings so much life to the party,” says Daniels. “I mean, Freddi is the party, and that’s kind of what it’s about.”
“One thing performing with Chris is that he knows how to work a crowd,” says Gowdy. “Chris does it better than I can ever think of doing it. That’s something you don’t learn overnight.”
The Colorado Music Hall of Fame inducted Daniels in 2013 and Freddi and Henchi in 2019 for their decades-long impact on the state’s music scene. With the Kings’ rhythm and blues stylings and Gowdy’s soul and jazz stylings, the musicians mesh to bring their legacies of fun to their shows.
“I’ve never written, and we’ve never chosen, a lot of songs about death and destruction and how awful the world is,” says Daniels. “This is a band that you come and see because you wanna dance, you wanna sing along, you wanna have a good time. That’s what it’s about.”
Chris Daniels and the Kings, with Freddi Gowdy, will be performing at Oskar Blues Grill and Brew, located at 303 Main Street in Lyons, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025 (New Year’s Eve), starting at 9:30 p.m.