Rafael, Joel. Interview December 16th, 2025.

00:00:00Jennifer Fabbi: Hello, this is Jennifer Fabbi, and today I'm interviewing Joel Rafael for the California State University San Marcos University Library Oral History Program. Today is December 16th, 2025. This interview is taking place at Joel Rafael's studio at his home in Escondido, California. Joel, thank you for interviewing with me today.

00:00:22Joel Rafael: You're welcome. Thank you.

00:00:24Fabbi: So we're just gonna' start out with a question that I think is a pretty general and large question for you. So much of your music is rooted in social activism, and I'm hoping you can give some examples of songs you are inspired or compelled to write based on the issues of the day.

00:00:45Rafael: Well, my activist role in songwriting is somewhat in a inadvertent. (Laughs). 'Cause I don't really decide I'm gonna' write a song about a specific subject. Usually it'll be something that will happen, an event that will motivate me to write a song. One example I could give is a song that I wrote called Sierra Blanca Massacre. And it is a song that was culled from a newspaper article. And I've done that a couple times. I'm not really a topical writer that scans the newspaper or the news to pick up a story to write a song about. But there's been a couple times when I've seen something in a newspaper article that motivated me specifically to write a song about that event. And one of 'em is Sierra Blanca Massacre, which is about a tragedy--basically a bungled smuggling operation in 1987 that took place in Sierra Blanca, Texas, where some undocumented workers were sleeping in a box car that was sidelined on a track in Sierra Blanca. And somehow the door got closed and latched, and so they were trapped inside, and the temperatures reached as high as 130 degrees. And there were eighteen men in there, and all of them perished except for one. There was one survivor. And they also found a journal that was written by a guy named Rosario Caldera Salazar. And in the article, which was like an Associated Press article that I just happened to find in a local newspaper that published AP articles was the story. And they told about the journal (including the poem El Ilegal), they told about what had happened and the temperature inside the box car. And then they told about the journal they had found, and they translated some of the lines in the journal. And those lines were so poetic in nature and so emotionally connected in such a real way that I started to write them down and incorporate them into a song about that event in Sierra Blanca. And that song has traveled great distances, mostly for free. I mean, it's on my Woody Guthrie record--I guess it is the second volume of my Woody Guthrie collection--has that song on it. But it's also been included on a number of compilations that have been used to benefit the immigrant community. One of the projects that that song is on--every copy of that album that's sold, which has a number of other artists on all doing songs on that subject area--the profits from that album would literally put fifty-gallon drums of water out in the desert where migrant workers were trying to get up to the border to cross into the U.S. So that's one example. Another example is El Bracero, which is sort of the same subject matter. I had already kind of dug in on the Sierra Blanca massacre song when I met Juan Martinez in 2013 at an event to return the names of the deportees in Woody Guthrie's song (Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)), to the victims who were buried in a mass grave in a cemetery in Fresno, California. There was an event that gave them their names back. And at that event, I met a guy named Juan Martinez, who was coordinating another event a couple weeks later to name a section of US 101 (highway) as the Bracero Memorial Highway between Soledad and Chualar. And he had worked his whole adult life to achieve that. Because when he was eleven years old--I dunno' if I've told you this story yet or not, but when he was eleven years old--he was coming home from a trip to the market with his parents, and they encountered a train wreck where a train had hit a bus that was carrying Braceros, which were contracted workers during the Bracero program working the agricultural fields in the Central Valley and all along the coast. And all the victims were killed. There were thirty-two victims, and his parents were basically first responders. He was eleven years old, and he never forgot it. And so his whole adult life he worked to give recognition to the Braceros and finally accomplished that before he passed away a few years ago. So he educated me about the Bracero program, and consequently, I wrote a song called El Bracero, which has been spotlighted in the movie, A Song for Cesar, which is about Cesar Chavez and his efforts to establish the United Farm Workers Union. And then one other example I can give you is in the form of a story, I was staying at a friend's house in San Francisco on Potrero Hill in a townhouse that they had there. I guess it was a townhouse, like a three-story house on a big hill. And they were late sleepers, and I was in their guest room, so they were upstairs sleeping, the couple that lives there. And I was in the guest room and woke up early, but they had told me where the coffee pot was. And so I fixed myself a cup of coffee, went and looked out the front door to see if my car was okay. It was parked on the street, and it was fine. I saw there was a newspaper there so I picked it up, took it in the house, and grabbed my coffee. I looked out the window into their backyard area, and it was a nice little courtyard that they'd fixed up back there with some pavers and like a table to sit at. And so I thought, well, I'll go down there and have my coffee and read the newspaper. And so I went out the door and closed it behind me not realizing that it was locked. And there was no way to get from there to the front door, which was probably locked also. But anyways, so I'd locked myself out of the house in San Francisco on a pretty chilly morning, and figured, well, I'm just gonna' go down and sit at the table and drink my coffee and read the newspaper. And I opened it up, and the first thing I saw was a headline that said, The Homeless Get the Heave Ho from the China Basin Digs. And I just read the story, and it was about how they were breaking ground for the Giants ballpark in San Francisco in an area called China Basin, which had become a homeless stronghold because they kind of pushed all the homeless people outta' the city. 'Cause it was kind of unsightly. They didn't want people coming to San Francisco to see homeless people around. And so the powers that be had kind of forced them outta' the city into this other area, which is kind of a deserted industrial area as I understand it. And they sort of set up like a Hooverville, you know, with tents and I guess garbage can heating fires and just were living there for a number of months. So when they decided they were gonna' break ground for the ballpark, they just sent the cops down there. And that was the gist of the article. The cops came down to the bridge at China Basin and basically rousted out the homeless and told them that they had to leave and don't come back because if you come back, we'll throw you in jail. And they posted posters that said that. This was all in the article. So I wrote a song called China Basin Digs, and it basically documented the story. And then John Trudell, my good friend and spoken-word artist and activist, added a bridge piece to it--a spoken-word piece about homeless veterans. And so that's a really powerful piece. I think that's on the record Hopper. I don't know why I've specifically written as many social activist songs as I have. When people say, You're an activist songwriter, I always kind of think, really? (Laughs). But then it can be pointed out to me, a bunch of my songs do kind of try to champion the underdog or some social issue that at least when I look at it, it seems to need attention. But I never really planned to be an activist songwriter. I grew up in the counterculture of the sixties. That probably had a lot to do with it. And my value system, I think, was largely influenced by my father and my mother. Their politics were--I would call them moderate in the sixties, fifties and sixties. They were both Democrats, but they weren't extremists by any means. And we had a lot of friends that were moderate Republicans, and I think we've talked about that--how it was such a different time. So my value system came out of that moderate sixties democratic environment. And it hasn't changed that much, but pretty much now--I think in some ways, society views myself and others that have similar opinions and views as leftists or socialists. But we're just moderate people that care about other people basically. That's how I see it anyways.

00:11:55Fabbi: So this I don't think that you've written a song about, but you had talked about a photo or a poster that I really appreciated the story that you told about it. So it was about the North Dakota pipeline experience that you had going there. Could you tell me a little bit about that?

00:12:16Rafael: Yeah. We did write a song about it. I wrote a song with Jason Moraz for that event. And what was going on is it was in September of a--maybe even a little earlier, maybe around August (2016). It was in the summer going into fall that we started to be aware of the DAPL, the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was a pipeline that was to be installed in North Dakota and traversed across the Standing Rock Lakota Native American reservation. And was going to go very deep when it hit the, I believe it was--I don't have a map in front of me, but it was either going under the Mississippi or the Missouri River. (It runs under both rivers.) We could check that out. It was going under a river that supplied water for not only for the reservation but for towns and cities downstream from where this pipeline was gonna' be going underneath it. It was gonna' be a gas pipeline. And because the history of leaks and problems long-range pipelines, there was a protest that developed, and it began with the Native American people of the area. And it gained a lot of momentum. It became an All Nations tribes event, where Native American people from all over the country traveled to Standing Rock, and there were a couple of camps set up there with literally--I think when we went there, there were about ten thousand people in the camps, and it was quite a spectacle. I have pictures of it. It just was amazing 'cause you just look out across the plains and there were just teepees and Quonset huts and yurts and cars and campers, and it was just an amazing scene. And it was so well organized. So what happened, basically, my wife and I had been following it on Facebook, and there were a couple of people that were reporting on a daily basis from there because there was a lot of counter activity going on to the protests that they had brought in--it wasn't the National Guard, but they had the local police force, and they had brought in police forces and even private military forces from other areas to deal with the protestors, to kind of put it down. And the protests became really, really big. And they were very peaceful. There were people that were infiltrated into the protest movement to try to disrupt the protest but mostly failed or were exposed and failed. There were a group of people that would literally go down to the river and stand along the river and even in the river to protest against the law enforcement people that were on the other side of the river lined up with weapons and tear gas and all of those kind of things. There were a lot of people that were injured in their peaceful protests--tear gas or hit with rubber bullets. It was a big event. And a lot of celebrities went there. And a lot of celebrities were asked to come there by the tribe. Or even by just people that were interested in supporting what was going on. And we were following. We really wanted to go, It was a pretty huge event. At least in our view, it was something that was important, and it was big, and we wanted to go there and kind of be a part of it in some way, to try to help in some way. Not just to hang on, but to try to contribute. There were people sending blankets and food and extra clothing just to support the camp. And right around that time, there was a political issue here in my local area. A piece of property that's just down the road from here that's kind of an open piece of property that some investors had managed to buy part of and were trying to buy the rest of it from private owners and establish a housing development called Lilac Hills. 'Cause this is West Lilac Road out here. So they wanted to call it Lilac Hills. And it was in an area that was zoned for about 700 houses if they were ever built there. And they wanted to put 1700 houses there, and there's only one exit out in the event of a fire. A lot of problems. It was a development that they had been trying to do for years. Like different investors would come in and then when it wouldn't happen, they would fall out, and then other investors would come in. I mean--and the whole operation changed hands at least two or three times. So their final push was right around 2016, summer of 2016. There was gonna' be an initiative on the ballot in November. And so we were trying to fight it in any way we could. The developers had a lot of money, and it looked like they were gonna' be able to finally push it through after about ten years of various plans of trying to do this thing down the road here. And I knew that Jason Mraz lived nearby here, and we had met a couple times. We weren't really close friends or anything, but we had met, and I knew his manager. And so I decided, well, we could do some Facebook advertisements or posts that would state our purpose in defeating this development. And so I contacted him through his manager. I told him the situation, and he had a similar thing going over near where he lived. So he would, he jumped on the bandwagon with me. And we both did basically social media memes--pictures with a statement about why we opposed the Lilac Hills development, which was called Proposition B as in boy. And my wife and I actually invested a few hundred dollars and printed a thousand stickers that said No on B. We put 'em on all of our trash cans. And when we were down there, we found--any place we could find to put those things, we stuck those things, and we handed 'em out to people. And we did these memes. I got Jason to do one. I got Rita Coolidge, who lived in Fallbrook at the time, to do one. And when the election came around, it was gonna' be really close. But when it was all done, and the votes were counted, we won by 64%. We defeated the development, and we defeated it in such a big way that that's the end of it now. It's never gonna' happen. So it's a done deal. It was a ten-year process. But through that process, I met Jason, and it was right around the time that this whole DAPL thing was going on in Standing Rock. And I guess we had talked about it a little bit just in conversation when we were working on this other issue. But at a certain point, a few months before that--backing up a little bit--I had been performing with Jon Trudell's band, Bad Dog, doing John Trudell's words--spoken words--'cause John had passed away the previous January. And they had asked me to stand in with them to do some events that they had booked that he couldn't do. And then there was a record store day where they were putting out a re-release of one of John's albums on vinyl. And so we went up to Portland and did the record--what did they call it? National Record Store Day. Did that. And then we did the Hempstock Festival up there in Portland. So we'd done about three shows together, where I had stood in and done John's words. And Jackson Browne had heard about that. And right around this time that this DAPL thing was going on, he got an invite asking him if he would come to Standing Rock and do a concert to support the cause. And I guess he thought it over. And he talked to Bonnie Raitt and got her on board to do it. And then one day out of the blue, I got a call from Jackson. Now I've got him in my phone book, you know? 'Cause we've communicated on a few different projects where we've both been involved, mostly around Woody Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Centennial. I don't talk to Jackson often on the phone. (Laughs) So all of a sudden my phone rang, and I've got him in there like if I've got somebody in my phone, in my contacts that is somebody that's well known, it's not just like in there like just their name, you know, in case somebody gets ahold of my phone and is able to get in there. I don't want them calling up my famous friends. I have more respect than that. And so I always put them in there kind of secretively with code names or whatever. And so he's in there with a different name, but I know what it is. And so my phone rings, and I look at it, and I go, who is that? (Laughs) And then all of a sudden I go, oh, oh, that's Jackson. (Laughs) And so I answer the phone, and it's Jackson and we have a conversation. And then he tells me that he's been asked to go do this concert, and he's going go do it with Bonnie Raitt. And knows that I've been performing with John's band, Bad Dog and wants to know if I could go there and do the song, Rockin' the Rez, and some other songs with John's band. And of course, I just said, Yes, of course, I'd love to do that. And so now I was on board, so it was gonna' be Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and myself with John Trudell's Bad Dog band, which is Mark Shark and Ricky Eckstein and Billy Watts and Deborah Watkins (Dobkin) and Quiltman, Native American singer and his son, Teewhanee. Big band. And so we go there and do the show--oh, before we go to do the show, it's maybe like two or three weeks before the show, and Jason gets wind of the fact that we're going to do this show at Standing Rock. And he calls me up and says, Wow, that is so cool that you guys are gonna' go do a concert there, man. I would love to do that so much. And I said, Well, you know, let me ask Jackson about that because it might be fun to have you go along. So I mentioned it to Jackson, and he said, Yeah, let's take him. And so then Jason was added on to the show. So it became a pretty cool lineup. And we all traveled to Standing Rock on Thanksgiving weekend of 2016. And we got there on a Friday night--Friday afternoon, or evening. On Saturday, a representative from the camp named Valerie Tallman took us on a tour of the camp to their school and their kitchen and their daycare. They just were so organized. They had a security crew and a buildings and grounds, trash pickup crew. I mean, for being a huge campout with 10,000 people it was just really a beautiful display of human interaction, you know, taking care of each other and covering all the bases. They had a medical clinic. I mean, it was just amazing. And they toured us all day Saturday, and it took most of the day. And then towards the end of the day, they took myself and Jackson and Bonnie and I guess the Bad Dog band members--and Jason was traveling by himself, so he wasn't with us on the tour--but they took those of us to the, I guess it was a yurt, where we had a meeting with the Native American elders from several tribes there. It was just sort of a discussion about what was going on, kind of an update of what the opposition to the protests had been, and also strategizing about how to move forward to succeed. And it was just really amazing to be included. I just felt so honored to be included with that group. Then we went back to the hotel, which was at the casino at Prairie something Casino (Prairie Knights Casino & Resort). I can't think of the name of the casino, but it's the local casino there that's Native American owned or partially owned. And stayed there the night. And then on Sunday, we basically had a sound check that lasted all day. (Laughs) And then we put on the concert on Sunday night for--I think it was a theater that held about 1500 people. Maybe a little more than that. And it was sold out, of course. And we gave away, I think it was about 400 tickets, to the water protectors, the people that had been going down literally standing off the people that had been--the law enforcement (air quotes) basically shooting them with tear gas and bullets and stuff. So we did that for them as a benefit show. And I think we raised about $90,000 at that show that all went to the tribe to support the camp. So that was a really fulfilling experience. I can also add to that--a personal thing that I guess I don't want to leave out, even though it's not the happiest moment of my life. That is when I realized that I was having continuing symptoms of what turned out to be bladder cancer. So I was diagnosed just a couple months after that, after that trip, with bladder cancer and had about a five-year battle with that. So I'm happy to say I'm cancer free such as it is at the moment.

00:28:12Fabbi: So glad.

00:28:12Rafael: The last couple years. Yeah. So that's just the kind of stuff, I think, when you get to be my age you just, you're gonna' be facing those kinds of things. So I try to just take that stuff in stride as much as possible. I've been very fortunate.

00:28:29Fabbi: Thank you so much for telling that story. I thought that was really an important one.

00:28:34Rafael: Thank you for drawing it outta' me.

00:28:38Fabbi: Yeah. So, changing gears--

00:28:41Rafael: Okay.

00:28:42Fabbi: So you have done a lot of performing internationally, and I'm wondering if you can tell me about those experiences and then maybe how they compare to performing in the U.S. if there is a comparison.

00:28:55Rafael: Well, I could sum that last part up pretty quickly, and I'll just do that at the top. As a friend of mine in Europe said-- in Spain, actually--we were talking about art and how art is consumed in different parts of the world. And she put it into perspective for me because I was sort of basking in the--what should I call it? The friendly and communal atmosphere of the audiences in Europe. They're so attentive and they just seem so attentive and so interested and so polite. They seem to know all the etiquette of how to experience a concert as a audience member. (Laughs) The things that, they try to teach those to us here as well. But I don't know that we as a group of American people generally learn all those kinds of protocols. We probably think some of them aren't necessary. But anyways, in Europe, the audiences are really wonderful. And so I was just enjoying that and talking about it. And she said, Well, in her experience, she said that in the west, people consume art and entertainment to shut off the stress and busy-ness and complication of the day. Put the troubles over there and go out and enjoy yourself. (Laughs) Whereas in Europe, she said, people do that also, but when they go out to experience art--whether it's music or visual art, whatever it is--the art in Europe is mainly about the issues. And so it's kind of right there in your face. You kind of have to have an opinion about it. Here in the U.S., people kind of don't wanna' think about it in a general way. Not everybody. Of course, there are people that are conscious and are thinking about what's going on and at least putting out the energy of wanting things to change for the better. But in Europe, social issues are right in front, and people are--I think they tolerate them better than we do here. But at the same time, they're more aware than we are generally about what's going on. And I think that contributes to the way that they consume art.

00:31:33Fabbi: And you've mostly toured in Europe?

00:31:36Rafael: Yeah. I mostly toured in Europe and the U.S. Western Europe. It started probably back around 20--I'm gonna' say 2008 or 2009. I met a woman from Holland that was an agent--a booking agent--mostly for American acts. She's not a big agent, like she booked very small shows--house concerts, small clubs, small theaters. And, in my case, radio interviews, In Holland, all the radio and media is located in one town. (Interview was interrupted and restarted.) So my agent, Joanna, picked me up at the airport south of Amsterdam, and drove me to The Hague where she lived. And then took me over to a couple's house, some friends of hers, which is where I was gonna' stay. And they've become really good friends of mine. These people have an apartment. It's like four stories, it's like a line--a building that's just like a line of the building. And there's like doors (makes hand gesture pointing to a line of doors). But you go in and then it's like, there's four stories, so it's like a lot of stairs. But I had--the third floor was mine. It had a bathroom and a bedroom, and a little--not a deck, but like a little, what do you call it? A little porch. I could walk out and look out into a little courtyard with other apartments and gardens and stuff. It was pretty cool. And so that's where I was gonna' stay. That was my first trip. So we had some small concerts that we did there. I did, I think, three shows of the four or five shows that I had booked. I think the next day we were supposed to go to do radio interviews. But what happened was really tragic. My first trip there, I had a grandson, Marley, who had been born just before I left. He was premature, and he was in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for a couple of weeks. And he had just got--he hadn't quite gotten outta' the hospital yet. He was getting outta' the hospital right about the time I was leaving to go to the Netherlands. I got to hold him one time. But I got there, and it was my, I think it was my third or fourth show. I had just sound checked. We were in a small town right on the border of Germany, and I got a text from my daughter, my younger daughter, telling me that her nephew, my grandson--so my older daughter's son--had died. And he was just twenty-six days old. It was really a shock. And to be so far away was really difficult. So I did play the show. I had sound checked already, and the audience was in the club, so I played the show. And I always say it was just like a show played blind. I don't remember one thing about that show. Except just sort of a blur. But anyways, the next day. we canceled the rest of my trip and rescheduled my flight home. So that was my first trip to Europe. Luckily, I was able to return under better circumstances and have been back a bunch of times since then. To the Netherlands. I've been there one more tour with Joanna, that agent, maybe a year later--might have been--I think it was about a year later. And then since then, I've been to Italy, the UK, Spain, and France. First we went to Italy. I was invited to be on a festival in a town called Sarzana, which is right up at the top of the Mediterranean, so like the boot comes down. And so if you're looking at me, the boot is coming down like this, and it's right up in this area. (Laughs.) South of Milan. And so I went to play that festival, sort of as the Woody Guthrie representative, like I was the Woody Guthrie person. But it wasn't the centennial year. I think it was 2011. That sound right? Yeah. Then the centennial year--I went two years to that festival, and the second time we went, Lauren and I both went that time. That was the first time she flew with me to Europe was when we went to that Sarzana festival. And we were there for about--well, the festival was like a long weekend and a few days, so we were there like a week. And we got a call--this was on our second trip there. We got a call from my manager, who was my daughter at the time, saying that she had talked with a connection that they had in Spain--in northern Spain--that was willing to book me in three small shows. But we would have to drive across France to Spain. Rent a car and drive across France to Spain and drop the car off in Spain, in Oviedo. But we'd already been there like over a week, and it was gonna' mean that we'd have to be there for at least another week. It would make the trip like more than two weeks, I think. So I think she said, Think about it tonight, and let me know tomorrow because it is a long trip. And we just looked at each other and thought if we don't do this, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives. And so we said yes, and I rented a car and drove across France. Before we left, at the festival, which was in a fort--they call it a fort, but it's kinda' like a castle--there was a guy painting portraits there. And when we walked into the area where the festival was inside of this castle across a drawbridge and into this courtyard--it's a big courtyard with chairs set up in a stage. All on the walls around the courtyard, there were these huge paintings, and this guy was painting, and he was painting this one of Woody Guthrie. And--

00:38:57Fabbi: I'm gonna' do a pan out real quick so that I can get the whole (pans out to large painting on the wall behind Rafael)--

00:39:02Rafael: So he was painting this picture, and I've got a video somewhere that I'll include in the archive collection of this guy painting the picture. And we walked over and we were watching him, and the promoter came over, and I said, Is he selling these paintings? And he said, Yeah, he's selling 'em. And he said something in Italian to the painter, and he said something back. And he said, Yeah, he's selling 'em for 250 euro. And I thought, well, that's a really good deal. I'm like, Hmm, should I do that? And then the guy said something else to the promoter, and the promoter said, He says he'll sell it to you for a hundred euros since you're the Woody Guthrie guy. And we just thought, how can we not buy it? So we bought this painting, he finished it up, and then he let it dry. And then the next day he rolled it up, and I think he put it in a tube. Maybe he just rolled it up and--I can't remember exactly, but we put that in the rental car, and we drove across France with it, and we stayed with a friend in France, who then--the next day after we stayed with him--helped us ship it back to our house. And so then we went on to Spain and met our good friends in Spain. We, of course, didn't know them then, but they've become our really close friends now. Fabiana Garrido and Beth (please fill in). There are a couple from Ávila in Asturias, Spain. And he booked three shows for me, and they were basically in Irish brew pubs. Because there's a lot of Celtic influence in northern Spain because right across the Atlantic are the British Isles--Scotland and Ireland. And so they vacation in northern Spain--people from there--a lot. So there's a lot of musical influence. And so these were like Irish brew pubs. (Laughs) But the thing about it that was different than an Irish brew pub here in the States, or maybe even in Ireland--I've never been to Ireland, so I can't really say. But they set up the show for me to do, and when it was time to do the show, which was supposed to start at nine o'clock--so we went in, we sound checked, got all the sound good, and then they said they wanted to take us to dinner. This was about seven-thirty or eight. So we went over to the next street over, which was, they called it the street of cider, because hard cider is the drink of Asturias. So they make a cider out of apples, and it's kind of a ritualistic drink to toast friends with. They put a little bit in the glass and they pour it from about way up here (holds arm high above head). They pour it down into the cup to get the oxygen going. And then everybody--sometimes they'll share a glass and then leave a little in the back and just throw it on the ground like a prayer. So we were on the street of cider, and we had dinner there, and all of a sudden I noticed it was nine o'clock. And I said, Well, you know, it's nine o'clock. Shouldn't we be getting back over to the club? And they said, Oh, it's okay. It's okay. We've moved the show back to ten. Oh, okay. He said, No problem, man. So we're just having cider and eating and having a really good visit with these new friends. Which are the friends, the guy who owns the pub, and our promoters, and a couple other friends that they invited along. And so all of a sudden, it's getting close to ten. And I go, well, it's almost ten. Should we be getting back? Oh, don't worry. We moved the show to eleven. (Laughs) And so finally we go back over there a little before eleven, and we walk in, and the place is like wall-to-wall. It's completely packed--adults and kids sitting on the floor. So I start to play my show, and you could hear a pin drop in this bar, and that's the difference between playing in a pub in Europe and playing in a pub in the U.S. So it was really, really cool. I played three shows altogether, and then we flew home--to Madrid and then home. He invited me back the next year and asked me if I could bring a couple of other musicians with me. And so the next year we went back to Spain, and we played, I think, about five shows, a couple of really nice shows in a couple of theaters. A couple of pubs and one at a botanical garden that had a big outdoor stage area. I took--Lauren has two cousins that live up in Northern California that play music. They're both young, and I jammed with them a couple of times, and so I took them with me--a bass player and a drummer. And we went to Spain, and we played those shows in Spain. The one show we played at this really nice club called Santa Cecilia, which is the patron saint of music. And the guy who owns the club, when we left, told Lauren, I need you to send me a picture of Joel because I--and there were some big paintings of some other people, other musicians in his club up on the wall. And he said, I wanna' do a painting of Joel, so please send me some photos. So Lauren sent him a photo. We didn't think anything of it, and then we got invited back the next year, and I took two guitar players. I knew one from Oklahoma, Terry Ware, and another one from Texas, John Inman, who I'd played with in various bands over the years. And when we got to that club, we came in through the back way 'cause we were gonna' do a show in the garden area before we went in and did another show inside. And he, the owner, led me through the club out to the front of the club, to the front entrance to show me the painting of myself. That's like, it's huge. It's like this big-- (Holds out arm span and laughs) I was just shocked to see it 'cause it was a really good painting of me. (Laughs) And I've never really had anybody paint a picture of me before. He didn't actually paint it, but he has a friend that will paint these pictures when he commissions them for his club. And so my painting is still hanging in his club. Every once in a while, he'll post something that's happening in the club, and I'll see it, and if the angle's right, I can see my painting in the back of the room. It's kind of a thrill, you know? And people they'll say--when I think about what's special, what's so special about having a painting of myself hanging in a small town in northern Spain in Asturias? The thing that's special about it is that there's no painting of me hanging anywhere else in the world, but there's a painting of me hanging in Ávila, Astoria in Spain, And it's just such a cool thing, you know? I mean, it really just like touches my heart that they wanted to have a painting of me there. So that's kind of a special story, that that painting is there in Spain. And whenever I go back there, I get to see it hanging in this club with all these other people. There's a painting of Willie Nile, who was a really great rock and roller from New York. And there's a painting of a lady named Luz Casal, she's an international singer from--I'm trying to think of the name of the province--Galicia, which is the next province over from Asturias. And so my trips to Spain have been really, really great. I've been there four times now. On that particular trip with the two guys from Oklahoma and Texas--no, actually I should say I'm backing up--on the first trip with the cousins playing with me, we also went to England and played the Glastonbury Festival, which is a huge festival in England. It's like the Woodstock of England. The main stage is like--from the main stage, you can't see the end of the audience. It just goes and goes and goes. I guess they have these repeater speakers that go back so people can hear the music way in the back. But they have about five or six stages, and I was on a stage called the acoustic stage, which was under a big tent and probably can hold about three or four thousand people. I got to go there twice. The first time was strictly on a trip to England, not on a Spain trip. And I played with a piano player. Just myself and a piano player. And when I got up to play there was probably--I don't know--two hundred or three hundred people in the tent. So there's a lot of empty space. And I just thought, well, nobody knows who I am. (Laughs). And when I got off the stage, the guy who was the promoter was very apologetic. He said, I'm so sorry there weren't more people here. And I kind of go, oh, it's okay. (Laughs) And he said, No, no, really! He said, England is in the National Cup or International Cup for soccer, for football. And they were airing the game in another tent somewhere else on this huge property where they have Glastonbury. And he said, So many people were over there. 'Cause right when my set was happening is when England was playing some other country. And he says, So I'm gonna' bring you back. I'll bring you back next year. And so I thought that was really a nice offer, so as we are getting coming around to the next year, we got a letter from him that said, I told you I could bring you back this next year, but I'm not gonna' be able to because the year after this year, we have the Olympics. And so this year--we aren't gonna' have Glastonbury the year that we have them Olympics--so this year, I have to do some favors to some acts that I've promised that will be on the show. And so I'm going to bring you back, but it's gonna' be the year after the Olympics. So it's gonna' be not this year and not next year, but the year after that. And so I kind of said, Okay, sure. (Laughs) Thinking that's not gonna' happen. Sure enough, the year after the Olympics in England, he invited me back. And so that year was the year that I went back with the two cousins. From Spain, we went to England to play Glastonbury the second time. And there was a guy named Jake Bugg that was on before me, just solo. And he's really big at England. And so the place was packed. And so when I got on stage right after him, there was like three thousand people in the place. And so I realized that it wasn't just me--the last time--I wasn't the only reason it wasn't a big crowd in there. So it was pretty fun to be able to go and play a festival like Glastonbury two times. Really a big prize for me and a great memory to be able to be there. It's such a famous festival, so well known. We got to see Stonehenge, which is right near there, on the way. And just really fun to be able to experience those things--the things that I thought I never would experience. To have been to Europe, I don't know, seven times now. Sometimes on combined trips where I would go to England but then also go to the Netherlands and France, so it wasn't like a separate trip each time to each country, but I've been to seven countries, I think, or something like that. Or seven visits to France, the UK. Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy. So five countries but seven visits.

00:51:57Fabbi: That's so cool that your music has afforded you that travel and to see the world--

00:52:01Rafael: It has. Yeah. And we've never taken a tour or official tour of any kind in Europe. Most people go there, and they're booked on various tours and see this or that. One story I like to tell is when we were gonna' be going to Bilbao, which is in the Basque country. A couple of friends that were following us vicariously on Facebook, said, Oh, you're going to Bilbao. You've gotta' go to the Guggenheim. You've gotta' go see the Guggenheim. And I said, Well, we're not gonna' see the Guggenheim because we're not gonna' have time. And he wrote back and said, You've gotta make time. You've gotta' go to the Guggenheim. You're in Bilbao. And it was like, well, you don't understand. We're gonna' get to Bilbao at like five in the afternoon. We're gonna' check into our hotel. We're gonna' go to a radio station and do an interview. Then we're gonna' go do a sound check and eat dinner and do the show. And at eight o'clock in the morning, we're gonna' be on our way to another city. (Laughs) So we aren't gonna' see the Guggenheim. So he wrote back and said, Well, they have a restaurant. Maybe you could go there for breakfast. Just going like, no. (Laughs) It's not gonna' happen. But, you know, as I pointed out later, we did get to eat lunch in the castle. I don't know what castle it was, but it was just a castle along the way that had been turned into a restaurant. (Laughs) So there was nothing lost, as far as I'm concerned, on our trips to Europe. We saw beautiful architecture. When we were in Florence, we wanted to go and see the Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore), which is a big attraction there, to go inside and see the whole inside, the paintings, this Michelangelo or whatever. And we checked that out and found out that it was--we couldn't even get tickets that day. It was gonna'--the line to get in there it was like hours long. And so we were staying right near another church called Saint Croce's (Santa Croce) and a piazza right by that church. And it was five euro to tour that church, and there was no line. (Laughs) And so we went in and toured that one, and it was immensely interesting, and we just didn't feel like we missed anything. You know. It turned out that Napoleon's parents were buried in that church. (Laughs) There was a cloak that was supposedly the cloak of St. Francis hanging in a picture box in that church. It was really interesting and beautiful. So when we've gone to Europe, we've just seen what we've seen along the way because it's the music that took us there. And that's what we followed when we were there was where the music took us. So our trips to Europe, I think, were different than people that just go there as tourists, you know?

00:55:04Fabbi: Right. Nice.

00:55:06Rafael: Yeah.

00:55:09Fabbi: Okay, so we're kind of getting to the more general questions.

00:55:14Rafael: What time is it? Oh, we're doing good.

00:55:15Fabbi: Yeah. So I mean, in the four interviews that we've done, you've talked about a lot of this stuff, but just to kind of sum up, do you have work that you've accomplished in your career that you has been the most impactful?

00:55:34Rafael: Impactful in what way?

00:55:36Fabbi: To you.

00:55:38Rafael: To me. Well, I think it's all been--(speaks to wife who enters the room)--hello. I think it's all been impactful, and I've learned to appreciate the various experiences--(speaks to wife) we're still working a bit. I've learned to appreciate the different levels of experience over the years and try not to take them for granted, try to keep them in my memories. But there's some things I've done that I think have been really important for me and the people that maybe I was working with. And one of 'em--you might not think of it as that big of a deal--but before I was really able to have sort of a full-time career in music, I had a job in the community ed system. And I was given like a lifetime credential based on my musical experience to go to senior citizen and convalescent hospitals and homes through the community ed programs at both Mira Costa College and Palomar College to perform a class, uncredited class, for seniors in these homes. It was--when I was asked to do it, I was asked if I could do an exercise class, and I said, No, I couldn't. It wasn't really something that I would be good at. But what I could do is I could do some exercises--like some stretching things--and then incorporate that into maybe a film of interest to the patients or residents there. And then I could also sing some songs. And so I put together--way before the Woody Guthrie Festival, this was back in probably the mid-eighties, early eighties. So I put together a program of a lot of Woody Guthrie songs, a lot of Stephen Foster songs. Songs that would be--that were folk songs that were kind of in my world, but at the same time--and some of 'em, songs that had influenced me or I had grown up with. But songs that would also be songs that would be familiar to some of the residents because of their age, their generation. Because the songs were taught to me by people that were from their generation. Or written by or performed by people from their generation. And it also I would take films like travel films, like a tour film of Will Rogers' Southern California ranch. It would just be like E.G. Marshall touring around Will Rogers' ranch or a documentary about a guy, an old guy in Oregon that builds log cabins. I would just find these films at the library. And most of these facilities had a 16-millimeter projector. So I'd try to take in a half hour or an hour film for a two-hour class, and then I would sing songs for the other hour. And it was really hard work, not fulfilling from an artistic standpoint but very fulfilling from a service standpoint. Because the people--I just realized that the people were so blessed by my classes. It just meant so much to them. They would just beam when I'd come in the door. And some of them probably had no visitors. Some of them were very, were not cognitive, and some were more cognitive than other. It was a variety. So I actually had personal interaction with some of the residents that were there, and others, I just hope that they were enjoying it and were taking some of it in because they were kind of in their own space. But it was some of the hardest work I ever did. But I think in some ways some of the most important work that I did. And then, of course, the benefit shows that I've played on, like Standing Rock, have probably been more impactive and important to me than when I was actually able to contribute. But I contributed everything I could, and I hope that it was well received, but at the same time, I think that I profited highly from those experiences. And then the Woody Guthrie Festival, having performed there for twenty-seven years--from the very beginning for twenty-seven years--really formed me in a large way, formed my career. It was like, not really a stepping stone, but a necessary step. It could have been something else, but it just happened to be Woody Guthrie. The timing of them deciding to have a festival in his hometown when they did and actually being able to sync up with that and get on that first festival and then remain on that festival for twenty-seven years. Will I go back? I don't know. I didn't go back this year. Will I go back next year? I don't know. Maybe twenty-seven years is enough. But it was critical in my development as an artist. I'm a different artist in many ways than I was when I first started playing that festival. Even though I was already a professional performer. I'd already been through what I call at least three incarnations of an attempt at a music career. (Laughs) And the Woody Guthrie Festival was in a period that was probably in my third and fourth incarnation of trying to create a music career. But I think I've come out of that a much better-rounded performer and person just for the experience of going there and meeting and becoming friends with people in a cultural area of the country that's so completely different than where I live, where I spend my time. I've traveled around a lot, but Oklahoma's a place that I've gone for twenty-seven years for more than a week at a time. So I've formed relationships there that I haven't formed in some of the other places I've traveled.

01:03:18Fabbi: Joel, thank you so much for talking to me today. This is, I think, a really good stopping point for us for today. And we may talk again.

01:03:30Rafael: Yeah.

01:03:31Fabbi: Who knows? Okay.

01:03:32Rafael: We'll figure that out.

01:03:33Fabbi: All right. Thank you.

01:03:34Rafael: Thank you, Jen.