PART ONE
The Sixties
I was in a few bands as a teenager in the 60s. A surf band and two rock and roll cover bands as a drummer, and a folk trio as a singer and guitar player.
When radio started playing folk music in the 60s, my evolution was irresistible. My folk trio included a schoolmate, Bobby Kohl, on acoustic lead, and Brian Ebersole, the older brother of a friend, on upright bass.
We played a collection of old folk songs, some pop songs and a couple originals. Our venues were high school hootenannies, community events, and open stages at the Ice House in Pasadena and the Ashgrove and Troubadour in Los Angeles.
We performed throughout my Junior and Senior years and were even offered a recording contract after an audition at a local theater.
We recorded 4 or 5 demos at Valentine General Recording Studios in North Hollywood. That was my first experience in a professional recording studio, and a real education. The sessions were engineered by Jimmy Valentine the owner in Studio A. The Stan Kenton Orchestra had recorded there as well as The Beach Boys, so the three of us were pretty excited to be there.
As with many or maybe most recording deals, nothing came of it, but the experience was well worth it. By the time we graduated in 1967, our trio run was over. Bobby went into the military, I struggled into college and Brian kind of drifted out of our lives. Bobby passed away a couple years ago, but not before we reconnected and even played some music together. Ironically, I recently reconnected with Brian, and we reminisced about our failed recording deal.
PART TWO
1967-1977
By the time I finished high school I was well on my way to a more counter-culture point of view. I was registered for college at Cal State Fullerton in the fall of 1967. Everything was changing, and that included music. The war in Vietnam was raging and the draft was looming, and college was a 2S student draft deferment and would buy me some time to figure out what I was doing.
My second semester was mostly spent in Laguna Beach with a community of like-minded friends.
In the winter 1969 about 12 of us decided to move to Oregon and join some other folks we knew that had gone ahead of us.
It was largely a failed experiment but highly educational.
By 1972 we found ourselves back in Southern California living in North San Diego County about 3 miles from where we live now, and on the same road.
I found an open stage night in Encinitas at the original Blue Ridge Guitar Shop. Eagle Songwriter Jack Tempchin was the host and eventually we became lifelong friends and have two co-writes together.
Sometime in the early 70s I answered an ad in the LA Weekly from a band looking for a rhythm guitar player and songwriter. I was greeted by a singing electric guitar player and a bass player. After about an hour, the guitar player told me I wasn’t right for the job, and that was the end of it.
Then, about a month later I got a call from the bass player, Jack Wintz.
He told me he had moved to nearby Oceanside and still had my number and liked my songs, and wondered if I might want to play as a duo? He would play bass and accordion, sing harmony, and I would play guitar and sing my songs.
Casual was a popular word then (kind of like “cool”), so we decided to call our duo “Cajh” with an alternative spelling.
We played open stages and a couple shows for about a six-month run, and then out of nowhere, Jack took a high-paying job in Saudi Arabia.
PART THREE
1977-78
Just before Jack Wintz left for Saudi Arabia, we played an open stage at a club in Encinitas owned by Jack Tempchin called The Stingaree, after one of Jack’s songs. The open stage took place before the booked act, which was “Rosie (Flores) and the Screamers.”
The Screamers, formerly known as “The Assbites From Hell,” had been David Bradley’s band and later became The Jack Tempchin Band.
The Screamers were a good band, but with Rosie fronting them they were a great band. Unfortunately, the boys in the band didn’t realize that Rosie was the reason they were working, and their lack of respect and focus lead to their demise. IMHO.
That night, Rosie heard our set and we struck up a friendship. Next thing I knew, we were playing as a trio until Jack left for Saudi.
After that Rosie and I performed as a duo enlisting several lead guitar players to fill out our sound. Unofficially we were the Cow Punks. Lee Barnes from the Screamers became our first lead guitar player. He was great but strung out on downers. We were working five nights a week at two different venues, but often I would have to leave my house early and go to Lee’s apartment and follow him to the gig to make sure he showed up. That got old fast, and we decided it was better to have a good lead player who would show up 5 nights a week rather than a great lead player that needed a baby-sitter.
We went through three more guitarists before Rosie decided to move to Los Angeles and seek greener pastures. I had already settled in North San Diego County with my family, and wasn’t about to move back to LA.
I partnered with pianist Peter Dubow and we tried to keep at least one of our gigs going, but we struggled. Rosie had been our draw, and she was a real entertainer. In fact, I learned a lot just from being on stage with her five nights a week.
Soon I was out on my own and realized all too soon that as a songwriter, without the cover songs which had been a main part of our act, it was impossible for me to continue making a living playing in smokey bars.
PART FOUR
1978-80
This process has caused me to disclose some information and aspects to my story that up until now have not been public. For example, I have performed under 3 different surnames. Berkman, Edelstein, and my present and permanent name, Rafael. Chalk it up to the draft, identity crisis, or any number of other reasons, but without revealing this I cannot accurately tell my story.
In the fall of ‘78, I was not only on my own, I had no equipment except my guitar. Tad Williams, one of my best friends from high school, heard of my plight. He bought me a basic Peavey PA. He told me not to pay him back because he believed in me and his payback was just “to see a brother grow.” He was my first patron. He died in a plane crash in the Gulf of California the following year. I miss him every day, and he is referenced in my song, “Still Alive.”
I picked up a solo gig at a bar and grill called Windjammers on the coast in Cardiff, CA. It was 4 nights a week and it was rough. The first night I would haul my PA system and guitar up a long ramp to the second story venue.
Then I would play four hours to a smokey noisy room. At the end of the fourth night, I would break down the equipment, haul it back down the ramp. I played that gig for about two months.
My friend, Bill Missett, the music editor at the Blade Tribune, gave me a call to tell me that Rick Danko and his new band had just been scheduled to play a show at the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas. He gave me the name of the promoter and told me he thought I should approach them about opening the show. I don’t remember all the details, but I made the pitch and I got the show.
Needless to say, I was thrilled.
There were two shows. One at 7 and one at 10. After my first set, Rick met me at the door of the green room.
“Wow, man, you’re really serious, that was really good.”
That kind of validation in a young person’s career is better than financial reward, because it gives you a real reason to carry on. The promoter told me that Rick and his brother Terry had been singing along with me in harmony up in the balcony outside the green room.
That resulted in a long friendship with Rick. The list of musical heroes I met through him is also long, including Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson, at a small gathering in Malibu for Rick’s 40th Birthday.
I also had the opportunity to meet and hang out with Paul Butterfield, Blondie Chaplin, Joe Cocker, Eric Anderson and Jonas Fjeld backstage at various shows.
Rick made me feel like a special friend, but I’ve realized since then that he made everyone who knew him feel that way.
One time, I followed Rick from his house to a show he had at Madame Wong’s West in Santa Monica. He introduced me to his neighbor Nick, and Nick and I grabbed a table and hung out together for the show. The next night I was home with Lauren, and we decided to watch a movie, “The Deep.” A few minutes in I realized, “Oh, that’s Nick...Nolte.”
A couple days after the La Paloma show, a review of the concert gave me a nice mention, and I parlayed that review for opening guest sets with Jesse Colin Young, John Sebastian, and John Lee Hooker.
Musically, things were going well, but I wasn’t making any money, so a day job was a necessity.
One of the most interesting jobs I had during that time was working for Judi Sheppard Missett, just as Jazzercise was starting to take off. Bill Missett from the newspaper was Judi’s brother-in-law. Judi was starting to do some large-scale events and was recording her routines for a growing number of Jazzercise teachers.
She needed someone to help with the audio aspect of the taping, and once again, my friend Bill thought I would be a good fit. He introduced me to Judi and her husband Jack, Bill’s brother. For the next little while we were known as Video Jack and Audio Joel. More to come…
Part Five
1980-84
Richard Bowen, a friend I met through Rosie, owned Circle Sound Studios in San Diego. I had decided to record a single, and I enlisted his support. There were only a few good recording studios in San Diego and Circle Sound was the best. Richard was an accomplished songwriter and guitar player and an excellent engineer. He and I hit it off immediately, and almost before I finished my single, we had decided to make an album together.
Even without distribution, our self-released album, “Dharma Bums” (1981), has managed to find its way around the world. In 2014 my friend Gian Franco brought a copy to a show in Italy to ask if that could possibly be me.
Making a single, let alone an album, was not an easy task in 1980. Consider there were no DIY companies at that time for vinyl records or cassettes, so every aspect of the production had to be researched and sourced.
First, recording the songs at Circle Sound. Then, finding a mastering lab to cut a lacquer master from the taped recording and send it to a lab to be coated with a silver alloy called the mother, that would then be made into stampers. The stampers for each side were then mounted on a record press where hot vinyl would be pressed into singles or LPs.
Then, the artwork for the sleeves would need to be contracted at a printer that specialized in record covers, and could print, assemble the sleeves, and deliver them to the pressing plant for the finished records. None of these companies were used to dealing with an individual, so it was a bit daunting to get everything coordinated.
I found a pressing plant on Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. They said they would press my single, but I would need to get it mastered first.
They sent me to a place a few blocks down called Gold Star Studio. I was young and naive and had no idea that Gold Star was famous for Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” recordings of Ike and Tina Turner, Richie Valens’ “La Bamba,” and The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.” Stan Ross, the engineer for all those great records greeted me and got right to work cutting my master.
He commented that the echo on the snare drum reminded him of the echo on the Phil Spector recordings. I told him that was kind of what we were going for. Then he told me that all those records had been recorded right there at Gold Star! When we finished the mastering, Stan gave me a tour of Gold Star studio A and the famous echo chamber used on those recordings. What a trip, what an education. A few years later Gold Star closed its doors for the final time.
In the meantime, I had developed a new niche as an opener for national touring artists coming through town. I worked with at least 4 promoters during that time and opened shows for John Stewart, Country Joe and the Fish, Laura Nyro, Taj Mahal, John Sebastian, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Dave Mason, and Jesse Colin Young, at almost every concert venue in San Diego.
After opening a couple shows for Jesse, we developed a friendship, and he took me on tour to Arizona and then up to Santa Barbara.
In 1982 we were his backstage guests at Peace Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena where we first met John Trudell and heard him speak.
Yet, even as my career had more musical opportunities, I was still not making a living, so in the summer of 1983 I picked up a part time job as a concert assistant at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. When the concert series ended, I was able to grab another part time position at the Park as a sign painter. That’s when I joined the Teamsters Union, a membership for which I’ve always been proud. Eventually, because I was working at the Park, I had access to information about new job openings at the Zoological Society, so I applied for and was hired as the Public Relations Assistant for the Wild Animal Park.
That position soon evolved into Public Relations Production Coordinator, and I was in charge of all production and filming at the Park. We did everything from endangered species documentaries to national television commercials, as well as international dissemination of news on stories like the first captive hatch and the re-release of California Condors into the wild. It was a full-time salaried position with benefits, and a real blessing for our family, but it didn’t give me a lot of time or freedom to pursue my musical career.