Folk troubadour comes to Old Poway
Singer-songwriter Joel Rafael, an acclaimed folk singer who has lived in Valley Center for 30 years, will be at Poway's Templar's Hall for a concert hosted by the San Diego Folk Heritage Foundation.
The show - slated for 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8 - includes a mixture of old songs, folk standards and music from Rafael's most recent album, "Thirteen Stories High."
Released in April, the album, which was nominated for two San Diego Music Awards, opens with "This is My Country," a war protest song that features David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals.
Crosby, Stills and Nash have performed the song regularly in concert.
The album also features a cover version of Steve Earle's "Rich Man's War," and other songs that tackle issues that have long been fodder for folk musicians.
"This doesn't mean that every song has to do with social issues," Rafael said in a phone interview. "But there is a thread that runs through folk music."
For many, Rafael is best known for his interpretation of the songs of another outspoken musician, Woody Guthrie, the prolific songwriter whose songs about the working man, America and social justice heavily influenced the folk movement of the 1960s.
"In his time, he was labeled a socialist and a terrorist because of his music," Rafael said.
Rafael has recorded two albums with music from the troubadour, whose guitar famously "killed fascists." Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease in 1967.
Rafael has performed at every annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, which was launched in 1998 and is held in Guthrie's home town of Okemah, Okla.
With the blessing of Guthrie's daughter, Nora, Rafael was able to add music to five of the late folk icon's lyrics, some of thousands included in an archive.
Rafael said that as someone who started performing during the ‘60s folk movement, he couldn't help but to know and play some of Guthrie's music. Eventually, he became more interested in the roots of the music he was playing and delved into Guthrie's music.
When he was putting together his first album of Guthrie's music, 2002's "Woodeye," Rafael found one of the late songwriter's songs in "Born to Win," which at the time was an obscure and out-of-print compilation of writings.
When he recognized one of the lyrics from the book in the 1998 album "Mermaid Avenue," in which English folk singer Billy Bragg and the band Wilco put songs to unfinished songs, he decided to record one of the songs in the book.
"Dance a Little Longer," was Rafael's first work using Woody Guthrie's music. In 2003, as he was preparing a follow-up album of Guthrie's music, he was invited to tour the songwriter's archives and to record more songs.
Rafael said he pored over numerous lyrics, many of which had never been recorded by Guthrie.
Rafael said getting a glimpse of Guthrie's digitized notes, warts and all, was a validating experience for the singer-songwriter, who could relate to the scribbled out edits.
"When you first write out songs, they look like a bunch of chicken scratches on paper," Rafael said. "To see another writer's work - especially that of someone of the status of Woody Guthrie - was the same as mine was very validating."
Rafael said after spending time reading through lyrics on numerous subjects, he settled on about 10 that he then handed over to Nora Guthrie, who sent him back five of those with permission to record them.
"The process was very organic," Rafael said. "For the first two, I sat down at my piano and literally started playing the songs right way."
The local performance is one of several which Rafael will take part in before he starts touring the United States in December with another Guthrie-inspired concert series.
Along with Texas folkie Jimmy LaFave and other musicians, Rafael performs and narrates "Ribbon of Highway," a review of Guthrie songs whose title comes from the most popular of Guthrie tunes, "This Land is Your Land."
The local concert will be held at Old Poway Park, 14134 Midland Road in Templar's Hall. Tickets are $18 for non-members. For more information, visit http://www.SDfolkheritage.org.