Speaker 1: Here's something that amazes me about Raffi, how easily he
Speaker 1: can hold the attention of an auditorium full of kids
Speaker 1: bumping up and down in the little red wagon, bumping
Speaker 1: up and down. I keep thinking about this one Raffi
Speaker 1: concert video, in particular, whoa to be My Raffi is
Speaker 1: physically jumping up and down in his seat. The camera
Speaker 1: pans up to the balcony to show a pair of
Speaker 1: kids mimicking his movements. In fact, the entire concert hall
Speaker 1: of kids is bumping up and down in Unison's Hey,
Speaker 1: this wagon is still busted. The stick of the song
Speaker 1: is that the wagon keeps breaking down. By this point,
Speaker 1: the kids are losing their minds, yelling out the names
Speaker 1: of tools Raffy could use to fix the lagon. Listen
Speaker 1: to those ideas. This place is full of mechanics today.
Speaker 1: And just when you think a riot is about to
Speaker 1: break out, if Rafee stalls one more minute, he comes
Speaker 1: in with a punch line. I wonder what I've used
Speaker 1: to fix the wagon? Raff He's gonna fix it with
Speaker 1: those sandwich Raffy's own fix it with This man's got
Speaker 1: time with sandwich so that he can eat it down wagon.
Speaker 1: We had fun singing these songs together. And then I
Speaker 1: would meet the audience after the show, and that was
Speaker 1: kind of neat because kids with their parents would come
Speaker 1: up and the child would be trying to say something
Speaker 1: to me, and maybe it was taking their time, and
Speaker 1: the parents would be trying to hurry them along. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'd say wait, let's just listen, please, and then the
Speaker 1: child would have time to say something. And kids would
Speaker 1: ask wonderful questions of me. In those days of cassettes, Raffie,
Speaker 1: how did you get out of my tape? They would say, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't me who was in there in the first place.
Speaker 1: It was just my voice. That's what you're hearing. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's say. These early days of success were thrilling, but
Speaker 1: Raffie notes they were also stressful. Back then, he thought
Speaker 1: they had serious work to do. You know, I've had
Speaker 1: periods of my life where it's you know, I've had
Speaker 1: challenges to go through. You know, I'm no different than
Speaker 1: anybody else, personal challenges, professional challenges. At one point I
Speaker 1: said to myself, I keep falling up hill. Here's Ralfie's
Speaker 1: longtime collaborator and friend, Bert Simpson. Raffie will spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time on the tiniest details of things, getting
Speaker 1: them exactly the way he wants them to be. And
Speaker 1: that's just the way he is. The perfectionism could be tiring.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I just go on and say, okay, well
Speaker 1: let's just pick one show, you know, and get on
Speaker 1: with it. But it's not like that. So if that's
Speaker 1: what he meant by taking himself seriously, you know he did.
Speaker 1: Ralphie's attention to detail and commitment to excellence to the
Speaker 1: point of perfection put work ahead of fun. He writes
Speaker 1: that he could be controlling and moody if things didn't
Speaker 1: go his way, and that he often put too much
Speaker 1: pressure on others, but especially on himself. The friends in
Speaker 1: our lives can be a huge support to us. A
Speaker 1: prayerful attitude can often help in many ways. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful to always return to a place of
Speaker 1: love and joy. Meanwhile, as Ralphie's family audiences kept growing,
Speaker 1: his dream of becoming a folk singer for adults started
Speaker 1: to fade. He kept some of his night gigs, but
Speaker 1: the dream started to feel too distant, so he decided
Speaker 1: to fully commit to his children's music career. Soon he
Speaker 1: would start selling out thousand seat venues and festivals from
Speaker 1: coast to coast. He'd make hit album after hit album.
Speaker 1: He'd be off, movie deals and endorsements. The path to
Speaker 1: superstardom was knocking on his door, but Raffie said no,
Speaker 1: No toys, no fast food deals, no corporate endorsements, no
Speaker 1: to the industry standard. Raffi was determined to forge his
Speaker 1: own path, and he was gonna make it happen his way.
Speaker 1: I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new dad and host of Finding Raffie,
Speaker 1: a new podcast from my Heart Radio and Fatherly. Listen
Speaker 1: to Finding Raffie on Janu on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts