“Timelessness,” says award-winning Southern California-based singer-songwriter Joel Rafael, “is a quality that you can’t quite place, but it’s about something that seems like it’s always been there, and always should be there, whether it’s an old house, or a mountain or a song.” It aptly describes “This Is My Country,” the lead track on Rafael’s new album Thirteen Stories High, his first set of original material since 2000’s Hopper.

An affecting and plain-spoken protest song featuring background vocals from David Crosby and Graham Nash, the cut sounds both age-old and clearly relevant. Nash has said of it, “I wish I had written this song: so powerful and profound a call from his heart to ours.”

A stripped-down blend of wisdom, realism, empathy and hope flow effortlessly throughout Thirteen Stories High, recorded in Austin, Texas and released on Inside Recordings, an independent label founded by Jackson Browne. As prominent music writer Dave Marsh once said, “the stories Joel Rafael tells, and the emotional spells his music weaves, have depth and beauty because they come from so deep in his heart, and pierce so deep into ours.”

Rafael has been featured at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma, since its inception in 1998. Considered a natural and pre eminent interpreter of Guthrie’s music, Rafael is also a member of the national touring cast of the celebrated Guthrie revue Ribbon Of Highway, Endless Skyway and, prior to recording Thirteen Stories High, he released two albums honoring Guthrie’s songs.

Born in Chicago, Joel Rafael has lived for almost three decades in a small ranch house in the rustic coastal foothills of Northern San Diego County. It was the folk movement of the 1960s that, early on, spurred him onto a path of making music. He took inspiration from artists including Bob Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Joan Baez and scores of others who potently mixed music and message during a time of sweeping social change.

Over the years, Rafael has chronicled his life in song with literacy, horse sense and emotional resonance, releasing three albums of original material prior to Thirteen Stories High. He has toured extensively, both solo and with the Joel Rafael Band (featuring daughter Jamaica on violin), and performed as a duo with Rosie Flores. In 1995, he was recognized with the esteemed Kerrville Folk Festival's “New Folk Emerging Songwriter Award.”
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Joel Rafael is opening for Jimmy LaFave.

Thu Apr 22 | 8 pm
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$11 + fee advance | $15 door

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