Joel Rafael and Rupert Wates
Joel began performing in showcases and small clubs around Southern California in the early 1970s. In 1981, he toured with Jesse Colin Young, and released his debut album, Dharma Bums. Joel won Kerrville’s new folk award in 1995 and gained national airplay with the seminal Joel Rafael Band. He composed and performed all original music for the LA Theatre Works production of The Grapes of Wrath in 2002 and toured the southwest with Joan Baez in 2003. No influence is more obvious in his work than that of Woody Guthrie, with whom he shares five co-writes, and Joel has been a featured performer at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival for all twenty-seven years.
Rupert Wates is a London-born, award-winning songwriter who signed an exclusive publishing deal with Eaton Music in the late 1990s and has been writing full-time ever since. Since relocating to the United States in 2006, he has released eleven acclaimed full-length albums, earning airplay across the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, and Australia. His work has inspired over fifty songwriting awards and more than twenty cover recordings by other artists, including two full tribute albums recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles.