Raffi

Raffi
a.k.a. Raffi Cavoukian

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN

Kids Music Superstar Raffi Opens Up a Box of Sunshine
If anyone in the children's music world deserves the title of superstar, it's Raffi. The first contemporary children's artist to achieve gold-record status, he inspired legions of kids' performers to follow in his footsteps. None have succeeded in matching his runaway success for a variety of reasons. For one thing, today's kids have more entertainment options than children did 20 years ago, when Raffi first began playing to the sandbox set. For another, the bearded troubadour is a unique character with a profound and heartfelt respect for children, for their joys and fears and opinions. Barnes & Noble.com's kids editor Moira McCormick spoke with Raffi on the phone from the offices of his label, Troubadour Records, in Vancouver, Canada, and as usual, the Raffmeister -- who's just released his second boxed-set collection, RAFFI'S BOX OF SUNSHINE -- was full of fascinating stories.

Barnes & Noble.com: How did you come up with the title BOX OF SUNSHINE for your latest box set?

Raffi: We called the first one THE SINGABLE SONGS COLLECTION, and it was really popular. And then, folks at Rounder Records [Raffi's distributor] and Troubadour got talking, and they thought, well, wouldn't it be nice to offer another boxed set, for a bunch of reasons. SINGABLE SONGS, with its huge popularity, dwarfs the other albums. And we looked at the catalog of albums and the titles of these three and the fact that they're successive albums. RISE & SHINE came in '83, and then there was a Christmas album. ONE LIGHT, ONE SUN followed RISE & SHINE as the next studio album, and EVERYTHING GROWS followed that in '87. So we thought it just kind of hinted at a "box of sunshine" set.

Barnes & Noble.com: What are some of your favorite tracks on these albums?

Raffi: Well, "The Bowling Song" has been a lot of fun, from the ONE LIGHT, ONE SUN album. "Time to Sing" is a song that I've started a lot of my concerts with, and "One Light, One Sun" is another one I wrote that I'm quite proud of. There was an ecumenical council of churches in Canada that once used the lyrics of "One Light, One Sun" for their thank-you notes. I was very touched by that. And the other song I wanted to mention -- on RISE & SHINE, "This Little Light of Mine" -- has now become my concert ending song. It's a song that Pete Seeger used to sing for years and years, and I believe it came out of the Civil Rights movement. But I recently sang it with Tibetan children in Northern India, in the Tibetan community of Dharamsala. And you should've heard them belt it out! And we sang it for the Dalai Lama. This was in mid-November of '99. It really was a tremendous thrill for me and the children as well. His Holiness really enjoyed it. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Barnes & Noble.com: Did you meet the Dalai Lama?

Raffi: Yes, I did. He's extraordinary.

Barnes & Noble.com: What kind of a conversation did you have?

Raffi: We talked about my vision of a society that honors its young and the importance of doing so. I don't know if you saw the piece I wrote, "The Covenant for Sustaining Children" -- did you ever see that? I showed it to him, and he was quite taken with it. So we talked about what it meant to be compassionate, where children are concerned, and so on. It was a wonderful conversation.

Barnes & Noble.com: I would think that by now you'd be getting people who, as children, grew up with your music, and now they're wanting to buy your music for their own kids.

Raffi: That is happening, yes, absolutely. In fact, I've got a concert coming up, the Vancouver Children's Festival, at the beginning of June, and I will undoubtedly see families like I did the last time I played there. In other words, second-generation Raffi fans.

Barnes & Noble.com: Is there anything these first-generation fans have said that has really hit home for you?

Raffi: I recall one family -- the mum and dad were kids who grew up on my songs, and they were saying it was just so amazing for them to think of the warmth and joy that they received from the songs and that they could now share with their kids.