Speaker 1: The Armenians became a sort of threat to the Ottoman rulers.
Speaker 1: They rounded all of the intellectuals, all of the potential
Speaker 1: community leaders, and executed them or exiled them. They disarmed
Speaker 1: the men, took their weapons, took their arms, and sent
Speaker 1: them to labor camps and to eventual death. What was
Speaker 1: left where the elderly women and children. They set them
Speaker 1: on marches. These were death marches, so they were sent
Speaker 1: to their deaths. So basically it is a government eradicating
Speaker 1: its own people. I think people find it so strange. Right,
Speaker 1: it's been over a hundred years, what's the big deal?
Speaker 1: Get over it? But I don't think people realize that
Speaker 1: it's a lived experience for all of us. I'm Chris
Speaker 1: Garcia and this is Finding Raffie, a ten part series
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with The
Speaker 1: Rococo Punch about the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie,
Speaker 1: the man behind the music. Rafie never set out to
Speaker 1: make music for kids. A year before his first children's
Speaker 1: album came out, he released this instrumental honoring his roots.
Speaker 1: It's called Impressions of Armenia. He wrote it before the
Speaker 1: Fall of the Soviet Union after spending three weeks in
Speaker 1: Armenia with his brother and sister, an invitation from the
Speaker 1: government because of their father's renowned photography career. When we went,
Speaker 1: we were the privileged ones getting to see it in
Speaker 1: a very unique way because some of the resorts that
Speaker 1: we went to and state that the people didn't even
Speaker 1: know they existed. It was very much closed society in
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union era. So it was very moving and
Speaker 1: heartbreaking in some ways and promising in other ways. You know,
Speaker 1: it was just a lot to process emotionally. Impressions of
Speaker 1: Armenia is a song that tells the story of a
Speaker 1: homeland raf he's never fully known, of a country and
Speaker 1: a people who survived the fall of empires, a genocide,
Speaker 1: and diaspora. Rafi was born in Egypt and raised in Canada,
Speaker 1: but the history of his Armenian ancestors flows through him.
Speaker 1: He may not include an explicit at lee in his music,
Speaker 1: but like so many Armenian artists, that legacy has shaped
Speaker 1: his life and his work. It was night in Cairo.
Speaker 1: The wedding of seventeen year old King Farouk of Egypt
Speaker 1: was the event of the decade, complete with a procession
Speaker 1: of flowered parade floats, twinkling lights displayed all over the
Speaker 1: royal Palace, and a glamorous Parisian wedding gown for the
Speaker 1: King's sixteen year old bride, Queen Ferida. And among the
Speaker 1: celebrations performers was a young accordionist Arto Cabukian, Raphae's father.
Speaker 1: My father was quite a musician. He played two or
Speaker 1: three instruments, primarily the accordion, which is what I heard
Speaker 1: him playing while we were growing up, and in family
Speaker 1: gatherings and parties, we would always urge him to take
Speaker 1: out his big red accordion. Arto's accordion playing led him
Speaker 1: to Lucy Papasian. The two met at another wedding where
Speaker 1: Arto is performing and where Ardo danced only with Lucy.
Speaker 1: A few months later, they married five years later. Rafi
Speaker 1: Kabukian was born in Cairo, Egypt. Art, music, and literature
Speaker 1: were highly valued by the Kabukians, so they named their
Speaker 1: second son after one of Lucy's favorite Armenian authors, a
Speaker 1: patriotic novelist and poet who used the pen name Raffi.
Speaker 1: Rafi Kabukian grew up in Cairo in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He was the middle kid between his older brother Ownig
Speaker 1: and his younger sister Annie. Ownig and Raffi shared a
Speaker 1: room with their grandmother in the family's three bedroom apartment.
Speaker 1: It was a place where you could find hidden chocolates
Speaker 1: in the dining room, where the Armenian rugs were perfect
Speaker 1: for playing marbles and were pickled cucumbers are ready for
Speaker 1: snacking in the kitchen. And there was also the music.
Speaker 1: I think we used to hear on our family stereo
Speaker 1: set hi fi. We used to go the music we
Speaker 1: were listening to in the fifties, which were my formative years.
Speaker 1: We're pop music of the time from Europe, from all over,
Speaker 1: and these songs were melodic. Melody to me is something
Speaker 1: that's just indispensable when the custom music making soul. It's
Speaker 1: just interesting to remember that as a form of development
Speaker 1: from my Cairo years and my Armenian family with the
Speaker 1: rugs and the hi fi. But not all of Ralphie's
Speaker 1: childhood memories were heartwarming. I was mocked and humiliated at times,
Speaker 1: and I was hit and I couldn't square that with
Speaker 1: the fact that I knew I was loved, So why
Speaker 1: didn't I feel respected for who I felt I was.
Speaker 1: In his autobiography, Raffie writes that a sharp slap in
Speaker 1: the face or a snide remark from his mother and
Speaker 1: father were at odds with the warmth of their hugs
Speaker 1: and compliments. That when company came around, his parents would
Speaker 1: make him perform a song or a poem for their guests,
Speaker 1: expecting him to do it without complaint and without error.
Speaker 1: If Raffie did well, he was praised. If not, his
Speaker 1: embarrassment and shame were swept aside with a comment about
Speaker 1: doing better next time. That sense of shame and disrespect
Speaker 1: Raffi would carry that for years. He would eventually process
Speaker 1: it and form a philosophy around how kids should be treated,
Speaker 1: one that centered around respect. Raffie's parents loomed large in
Speaker 1: his life, especially his father Ardo. He ran a photography studio,
Speaker 1: Studio cavuc originally founded by Arto's father, Ohannas Cavukian. Arto
Speaker 1: was skilled at shooting, retouching, and framing photographs, but he
Speaker 1: was a master portrait artist. He'd work every day, coming
Speaker 1: home only for a meal and a nap. On Sundays,
Speaker 1: he took his family to church and the Pyramids and
Speaker 1: always ended the day back at the studio. He also
Speaker 1: had an impressive client list of dignitaries like the former
Speaker 1: King of Egypt and the head of the Armenian Church.
Speaker 1: Ardo and his family were like an Armenian gold standard,
Speaker 1: an example of what dedication, hard work, and resilience could
Speaker 1: create even after a horrific genocide. There were stories of
Speaker 1: survival of my families survival from the massacres of the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire, both sides of the family, and my mother
Speaker 1: and my father in infancy. Their families survived. The Armenian genocide,
Speaker 1: planned and perpetrated by Ottoman Turkish authorities, took place between
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen fifteen and the fall of nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: and the death toll varies widely. Figures range from six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand to as many as one point two million
Speaker 1: ethnic Armenian Christians, and that doesn't include the hundreds and
Speaker 1: thousands of Assyrians and Greeks who were also targeted. By
Speaker 1: the end of World War One, it's estimated that more
Speaker 1: than nine of Armenians and the Ottoman Empire had died.
Speaker 1: Raphie heard his family's harrowing stories all throughout his childhood
Speaker 1: Lucy's father escaped death seven times. He was a building foreman,
Speaker 1: and the Turkish officials always ended up sparing him so
Speaker 1: they could use his valuable skills. Arto's father, Ohanis, was
Speaker 1: an artist. The night before he, his wife, and his
Speaker 1: month old son Ardo faced execution, he stayed up drawing
Speaker 1: a charcoal portrait of the general commanding officer. When the
Speaker 1: officers saw the sketch, he was so impressed he assigned
Speaker 1: Ohannis to Aleppo to teach drawing. His entire family was saved,
Speaker 1: along with nearly thirty people after Ihan has claimed them
Speaker 1: all as family members, all saved because of his drawing.
Speaker 1: Isn't an amazing story, right, stories of how arts saved
Speaker 1: the day. Do you think your family's trauma leaving Armenia
Speaker 1: has impacted you? That's too hard a question to answer.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's impacted me. We are products of our experience.
Speaker 1: So I've written about this in my autobiography. I've talked
Speaker 1: about it. I mean, you know, the stories that you
Speaker 1: grow up with, they are the content that you have
Speaker 1: to make sense of and then you decide their role
Speaker 1: in your emotional landscape. Are those stories going to drive you?
Speaker 1: Or are they going to enrich your sense of who
Speaker 1: you feel you are and what it feels possible for you.
Speaker 1: This is not where I expected to end up when
Speaker 1: I started listening to Raffie's music, Genocide and trauma. Could
Speaker 1: anything be further away from the image we have of
Speaker 1: the guy who sings about baby whales and banana phones.
Speaker 1: I began to realize the profound empathy I registered in
Speaker 1: his music came from a really deep place. Perhaps without
Speaker 1: these stories, Raffie wouldn't be Raffie. There's the generation who
Speaker 1: lived the trauma, and then there are the generations who
Speaker 1: are descendants of those who are traumatized. They didn't live
Speaker 1: the trauma, but they carry this trauma. This is Dr
Speaker 1: Shushan got up at theon She's the deputy director of
Speaker 1: the University of Southern California's Institute of Armenian Studies. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's not difficult to imagine the kind of
Speaker 1: trauma surviving, the trauma of rebuilding, um of being in
Speaker 1: an environment where you're not sure you're welcome, of your
Speaker 1: family being torn apart of maybe missing important family members,
Speaker 1: language issues, cultural issues, this kind of constant upheaval each
Speaker 1: family dealt with the trauma of the genocide in its
Speaker 1: own way. Raphie's family faced it head on, sharing their
Speaker 1: story from generation to generation, while others did the opposite.
Speaker 1: There were groups who completely shut down and their method
Speaker 1: of dealing with this was to just eradicate the memory
Speaker 1: and kind of disassociate. There were those who stayed in
Speaker 1: a stage of anger, and there were those who talked
Speaker 1: about it NonStop. There are two kinds of survivors. The
Speaker 1: survivors who write memoirs, who have the luminous stories that
Speaker 1: they want to share, and then there are survivors like
Speaker 1: my grandparents, who shared almost nothing. This is Chris boj Alien.
Speaker 1: He's an Armenian American author who has written more than
Speaker 1: twenty bucks, including Midwives, The Flight Attendant, and The Sandcastle Girls,
Speaker 1: which is centered around the Armenian genocide. Chris remembers hearing
Speaker 1: a story about his aunt and uncle who are starting
Speaker 1: a chain of yogurt stands in New York City in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. They were explaining the business plan to
Speaker 1: my Armenian grandmother, and my Armenian grandmother says, oh, of course,
Speaker 1: and you'll be serving tongue, which is in Armenian or
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern yogurt drink, and my aunt says yes, and
Speaker 1: then my grandmother is to her, oh, well, that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why my parents first took me out
Speaker 1: of the school. They used the tom to poison the children,
Speaker 1: and my aunt says, ma, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1: And of course my grandmother had never shared with her
Speaker 1: daughter the story of when in an Ottoman school at
Speaker 1: the start of the Armenian genocide, some of the children
Speaker 1: were poisoned with tom. So little by little the stories
Speaker 1: would emerge, but it was a trickle because the trauma
Speaker 1: was so deeply ingrained inside them that they kept it
Speaker 1: to themselves. And then, of course there's the denial. Shushan says.
Speaker 1: Part of what keeps the trauma alive is the lack
Speaker 1: of recognition from the Turkish government. It has offered its
Speaker 1: condolences for the atrocities while actively denying any plan to
Speaker 1: systematic we wipe out Armenian Christians despite extensive documentation. This
Speaker 1: denial has kept the wound open and festering and kind
Speaker 1: of made the genocide this root paradigm in the Armenian narrative,
Speaker 1: the victimization. The trauma is constantly relived because there is
Speaker 1: no healing because there is no opportunity for moving on.
Speaker 1: Right because last year was the first time an American
Speaker 1: president actually called it a genocide. Absolutely, because of the denial,
Speaker 1: genocide recognition has become the priority on all Armenian platforms.
Speaker 1: It's as if we can't move on to anything else.
Speaker 1: And it's something I tell my students, right, there were
Speaker 1: Armenians before the genocide. There are Armenians after the genocide.
Speaker 1: Armenian history doesn't start and end with the genocide. The
Speaker 1: Armenian experience is not only about the genocide, but it
Speaker 1: seems like this, I mean again, Historian Rasmi Pandosian would say,
Speaker 1: it's the equalizer of all Armenians. You know that the
Speaker 1: people spread across the globe, among different countries, different cultures,
Speaker 1: different experiences, and yet the genocide and the quest for
Speaker 1: its recognition unites all Armenians. The stories, the silence, the denial.
Speaker 1: Shushan says that instead of destroying the Armenian people, this
Speaker 1: shared trauma has resulted in a culture of compassion, resilience,
Speaker 1: and artistic expression. In a sense, Raphi comes from a
Speaker 1: long line of artists, writers and troubadours, all processing the
Speaker 1: wounds of their ancestors. When you look at what Rabbi
Speaker 1: has done with his life, what so many Armenians have
Speaker 1: done with their lives in the diaspora, We've made art.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rapha's music is like the happiest music on
Speaker 1: the planet. I mean, you know Banana Phone and you
Speaker 1: know Baby Blue Good. All of the joy that he
Speaker 1: has brought to so many children and their parents. If
Speaker 1: you were to meet Raffie, you wouldn't say, oh, my god,
Speaker 1: grandson of survivors of a cataclysmic genocide who is scarred
Speaker 1: for life. You'd say, this is one of the nicest, funniest, sweetest,
Speaker 1: most talented people on the planet. Our Medians are just
Speaker 1: utterly joyful, despite the trauma, despite the fact that forever
Speaker 1: it feels like we have been the forgotten people. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's important, as the Armenian painter Sarry Un said, to
Speaker 1: no one's own homeland. But I like to take that further.
Speaker 1: I said, it's important to know your heritage, of course,
Speaker 1: but you can also transcend your heritage because you have
Speaker 1: a duty to your soul as to what your life
Speaker 1: is about. You know, to me, your people, they should
Speaker 1: encourage your own growth, not to limit it in any way,
Speaker 1: you know, So I can understand the impulse of Armenians
Speaker 1: to claim me as one of their own, and of
Speaker 1: course I am, but not in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: constrains me, but hopefully in a way that celebrates my
Speaker 1: own growth. I relate to that so much because there's um,
Speaker 1: there's their culture, and it is partially responsible who you are,
Speaker 1: but your your individual soul and your individual person that
Speaker 1: has no cultural restraints. So in your heart and in
Speaker 1: your mind and in your spirit, your your own person.
Speaker 1: And so that really resonates with me, like like both
Speaker 1: of our families forcibly fled their country. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel too American to be Cuban, into Cuban to be American.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you're laughing because I take it you understand.
Speaker 1: I do understand. I do. Did you ever have moments
Speaker 1: like that when you felt stuck between two worlds? For me,
Speaker 1: it was all about identity. It was a quest for identity.
Speaker 1: Who am I? RAPHI makes a really good point. Our
Speaker 1: family stories ground us. They honor the past, but if
Speaker 1: it's the only story we tell about ourselves, they can
Speaker 1: be stifling. My family story is my story, but it's
Speaker 1: not my whole story. How do I tell our story
Speaker 1: to Sunny without putting her in a box. I want
Speaker 1: her to know her history, but I also want her
Speaker 1: to break free from any cultural constraints and add her
Speaker 1: authentic self to our family story. Maybe the best way
Speaker 1: to honor the past is to allow the story to
Speaker 1: evolve with each generation. As Ralphie grew up, the political
Speaker 1: climate in Egypt was turning more volatile. Raphi writes that
Speaker 1: his father considered moving the family to Australia or Brazil.
Speaker 1: Van Ardo went on a trip to North America. He
Speaker 1: thought New York City was too big, Montreal had too
Speaker 1: much snow, but Toronto was just right. My parents had
Speaker 1: to leave Egypt to find a place where their kids
Speaker 1: could grow and freedom, and that's what they did. I
Speaker 1: was certainly appreciative, so thankful that my father had the
Speaker 1: foresight to see the family needed to move. It was
Speaker 1: not easy for us to leave our comfortable lives in Egypt,
Speaker 1: but it was what needed to happen. So you grow
Speaker 1: from that. You you appreciate, you know what's happened, and
Speaker 1: you you're you're thrown in with the challenges and the
Speaker 1: difficulties and the benefits of growing in a new land,
Speaker 1: and you just do it so in nt with just
Speaker 1: eight pieces of luggage and his grandmother's prayers, Raffi and
Speaker 1: his family flew over Europe and crossed the Atlantic for Canada,
Speaker 1: a world away where the Cabukians would once again start over.
Speaker 1: Raphi's life is a ten year old Armenian Egyptian boy
Speaker 1: in Canada couldn't have been more different than the one
Speaker 1: he had in Cairo. I was born into a new culture,
Speaker 1: if you will. In when we came to Toronto, everything
Speaker 1: made an impression, from how cold it was and how
Speaker 1: I see it could get to the fact that Mrs
Speaker 1: McKinnon in fourth grade one time gave me her lunch
Speaker 1: because I had forgotten my lunch. That really moved me
Speaker 1: so much. And the fact that, you know, teachers in Toronto,
Speaker 1: at the school that my brother and I and we're
Speaker 1: going to and later my sister, they didn't hit you whoa.
Speaker 1: That was interesting. And of course you know, hockey, ice skating,
Speaker 1: new skills, new challenges. What will the kids think of me?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you know, and a lot of kids
Speaker 1: were mean, you know, made fun of my name and
Speaker 1: played tricks on me, So I had to navigate how
Speaker 1: life was, which is really no different than what kids
Speaker 1: have to do today, you know. But as you know,
Speaker 1: challenges and hardships our test of character, and you learned
Speaker 1: to overcome and you become stronger within, and that's just
Speaker 1: how you get on with life. Raphie loved singing in
Speaker 1: the Armenian choir, but he felt out of place at
Speaker 1: the socials held at the Armenian Church. His parents also
Speaker 1: didn't allow him to do what other Canadian kids were doing,
Speaker 1: like joining after school sports or even riding a bike.
Speaker 1: Since Arto and Lucy didn't let him have his own,
Speaker 1: he spent a lot of time in his dad's new
Speaker 1: portrait studio in Toronto. As Arto meticulously retouched photos, they
Speaker 1: listened to music Andy Williams, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra. These
Speaker 1: were moments in Raphae's new world intersected with his old one.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan,
Speaker 1: joined by as Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, the whole folk
Speaker 1: music singer songwriter you know seen and then Motown you know,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of other music, diverse music on pop radio.
Speaker 1: And I said, to myself, this is cool. I want
Speaker 1: to get a guitar. So I went to a pawn
Speaker 1: shop and put down my twenty four and about a
Speaker 1: Kent nylon string guitar. That was my first one. I
Speaker 1: learned to play guitar and sing and imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: my thrill and and finding out that you could teach
Speaker 1: yourself to do that. As a teenager, raph You would
Speaker 1: spend his afternoons listening to records, playing guitar and singing
Speaker 1: folk songs with his friends. He also started secretly dating
Speaker 1: his first love, Deborah Pike, since Arto had a strict
Speaker 1: no dating while you're still living in the house rule.
Speaker 1: He was settling into hippie culture, letting his hair grow
Speaker 1: along and embracing the flower power of the sixties. I
Speaker 1: think there was a questioning of authority that was very healthy,
Speaker 1: and people are starting to think for themselves. So, you know,
Speaker 1: there was certainty the beginnings of the you know, the
Speaker 1: uptake of interest in yoga and Eastern philosophies and so
Speaker 1: so think about as an expansive experience for those of
Speaker 1: us want to be hippies. You know, it was, you know,
Speaker 1: we were starting to think for ourselves as Raphae attended
Speaker 1: the University of Toronto. He also started playing gigs around
Speaker 1: the city. He'd watch other performers too, learning from them
Speaker 1: and practicing the new techniques he saw on stage. He
Speaker 1: wanted to see where this music thing would take him,
Speaker 1: so in nineteen sixty nine, he moved out of Lucy
Speaker 1: Innardo's house, dropped out of university after two years, and
Speaker 1: threw himself into his new career. You know, at first,
Speaker 1: I was a folk singer, singer songwriter, That's how I started.
Speaker 1: And I wanted a career kind of like James Taylor.
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to play medium sized halls, not
Speaker 1: Madison Square gardens. You know, the folks scene in Toronto
Speaker 1: was vibrant and tight knit. Ralphie's friend and fellow folky
Speaker 1: John Lacy, remembers those days. Well, you'd usually go to
Speaker 1: a place and you do a guest set on a
Speaker 1: jam night or hoot Nanny Knight who was called back then,
Speaker 1: and you do your thing and if they like you enough,
Speaker 1: they'd hire you and you come back whenever the date was.
Speaker 1: He and Raffi would often back each other up at gigs.
Speaker 1: He was doing the same stuff. Was we all work
Speaker 1: on and then he wrote a few songs too, but
Speaker 1: predominantly he was he was doing covers. Who would you
Speaker 1: guys cover? John Prine, the Birds, uh Pete Seeger and
Speaker 1: joined byas and don't he met schell O'Neil young that
Speaker 1: type of thing. Just whatever tune in the grabbed you,
Speaker 1: you know. John and Raffie moved into a big house
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other young hippies in an area
Speaker 1: of Toronto called Cabbage Town. John says he taught Raffie
Speaker 1: a guitar technique called flat picking. He even got to
Speaker 1: know Rafy's Armenian heritage through the meals at the Kabukian home,
Speaker 1: where he remembers eating tabuli for the first time. John
Speaker 1: also saw how Ralphie's parents had a different vision for
Speaker 1: their son's life. I think that he felt a certain
Speaker 1: tension because here he was, his folky musician going on
Speaker 1: the world, and all of us who decided to do
Speaker 1: music for a living, that was the thing, was the living.
Speaker 1: There was a certain stress with the parents over that,
Speaker 1: certainly with my parents, so they didn't want me to
Speaker 1: do it. His folks weren't a hundred percent behind on
Speaker 1: doing it. They are typical immigrant parents. They wanted the
Speaker 1: kids to go to university and get a classic degree
Speaker 1: and education and go into a bona fide of business.
Speaker 1: I think his parents might have wanted him to the
Speaker 1: photography think too. As Ralfie was finding his way as
Speaker 1: a folk musician, the pressure and pull from his parents continued.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem to understand that he had his own
Speaker 1: goals and dreams for his life. Ralphie remembers the time
Speaker 1: in his early twenties when he sat for a portrait
Speaker 1: at Arto Studio. My father had taken a beautiful color
Speaker 1: portrait of me head and shoulders, and he had this
Speaker 1: abstract painting. I don't know who who did the painting,
Speaker 1: but he kind of took the two image. Isn't made that,
Speaker 1: you know, a double exposure color print, and so there
Speaker 1: there's my head and shoulders, but you know, abstract colors
Speaker 1: all over the place and forms and so on. Are
Speaker 1: They called it the indecision of youth, And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say he called it that in a flattering way. So
Speaker 1: I was a little upset about it, but I also
Speaker 1: understood that that's how he saw me at the time.
Speaker 1: But I was exploring. I was excited. I was alive.
Speaker 1: I was, I was awake, you know. So do you
Speaker 1: think this portrait was your dad's reaction to just not
Speaker 1: understanding you? Whoa he was struggling with the man I
Speaker 1: was becoming. Yeah, because it didn't go along the script
Speaker 1: that he would have wanted. I wasn't gonna just say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll work in your studio, dad, you know from now. No, No,
Speaker 1: I was on my own path, and that was hard
Speaker 1: for him because he had gone into his father's work
Speaker 1: after his father's death, even as he my father had
Speaker 1: taken his father's work and run with it, as in,
Speaker 1: you know, pioneered in color portraiture, something his father never did.
Speaker 1: So we all have a duty to ourselves to to
Speaker 1: grow our hearts yearnings, to to put those yearnings into
Speaker 1: the expressions of who we are and how we might
Speaker 1: serve in society. Was it hard for you to go
Speaker 1: against your parents expectations like that? Not at all. No.
Speaker 1: I I knew that I needed to, you know, travel
Speaker 1: my own path. Decades later, Raphi wrote that perhaps his
Speaker 1: parents were culturally and personally incapable of seeing him as
Speaker 1: his own person rather than as an extension of themselves.
Speaker 1: But He says Ardo's portrait does remind him of how
Speaker 1: tough his path towards discover or in his authentic self
Speaker 1: actually was. Finding an identity free of the one his
Speaker 1: parents had dreamt up for him would take years. For
Speaker 1: the first half of the nineteen seventies, Rapie hitchhiked through
Speaker 1: Canada and the United States. He performed at a folk
Speaker 1: festival in Regina, busked in bamf and played for six
Speaker 1: weeks in the lounge of a resort in Arkansas. He
Speaker 1: says it felt like he was enrolled in life one
Speaker 1: oh one, learning how to live as a struggling folk
Speaker 1: singer and finding his own musical style. Then in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Rafi took another chance. He'd seen how better paying gigs
Speaker 1: went to artists who had a recording contract, so he
Speaker 1: formed Troubadour Wreck, his own record company, and he signed
Speaker 1: his first artist himself. And because he'd be a one
Speaker 1: man record label, this would give him full control of
Speaker 1: his artistic vision books most all of my mind, never
Speaker 1: no much trouble. I guess I'm nowhere to hide. Through Troubadour,
Speaker 1: he released his first album, Good Luck Boy, a folk
Speaker 1: album for adults it's the album that featured Impressions of Armenia.
Speaker 1: There's a line in the title track that really sticks
Speaker 1: out to me. I'm huven money hunt. I hope I
Speaker 1: started trend. Feel like everything I've ever wanted was spitting
Speaker 1: around the bind. I feel like everything I ever wanted
Speaker 1: was waiting around the bend. And I mean he wasn't
Speaker 1: wrong next time. On Finding Raffie, the language in most
Speaker 1: children's albums at the time, it didn't reflect anything, and
Speaker 1: just it just talked down to children as if they
Speaker 1: were all babies and idiots. We weren't going by any
Speaker 1: market research or anythink We were kind of winging it,
Speaker 1: you know, having fun, including songs that we thought kids
Speaker 1: would enjoy singing, and that's what we did. Finding Raffi
Speaker 1: is a production in My Heart Radio and Fatherly in
Speaker 1: partnership with Rococo Punch. It's produced by Athor and Fendalosa,
Speaker 1: Meredith Hannig, and James Trout. Production assistance from Charlotte Livingston.
Speaker 1: Alex French is our story consultant. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Andrea Swahe. Emily Foreman is our editor. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez Crusado Raphae's music is courtesy of Troubadour Records.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour. Our Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Jessica Albert and John Parotti at Rococo, punch Ty Trimble,
Speaker 1: Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly and Me. Chris
Speaker 1: Garcia thank you for listening.