It’s extremely rare for me to leave comments on YouTube videos. I wouldn’t know what to say besides, “You uploaded a video! Good!” Yet, if you look at a recent YouTube upload of the 1977 Raffi album Adult Entertainment, you’ll find that’s essentially what I said, and that I’m one of its only commenters.
Yes, that Raffi made an album with that title. It’s a beautifully cheeky twist on the “children’s entertainment” label that had already become part his brand. It’s also a practical decision if you’d like to reduce the number of angry letters you’ll receive from confused parents – nobody can say you didn’t warn them. I imagine the title is what led me to look up this album a few years ago while scrolling through his Wikipedia page. My curiosity about Raffi didn’t come from any special nostalgic connection so much as it came from this habit of mine of building my own nostalgia out of next to nothing for all the media and culture that I feel should have been a big part of my childhood.
Growing up, I became aware of Raffi when I was just slightly too old for his work, and I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been a part of my childhood earlier when it seemed like he was a greatly appreciated artist who had been around for a while… I just couldn’t tell how long “a while” was. Turns out, it was decades! Who knew? All I knew is that he seemed like he belonged to all the kids who’d found him first, not to me. Most kid culture read that way to a very sheltered boy living in the Evangelical bubble, but I digress….
Raffi already released his first children’s album, Singable Songs for the Very Young, in 1976. You’ve got to appreciate his knack for titles that just tell you who the audience is and what product he’s made for them. It seems to me that his children’s music would become more popular years later with albums like 1980’s Baby Beluga, so he’s still finding his voice as an artist at this point.
This makes for a fascinating album that’s stylistically diverse and hard to pin down to a genre. The best way I can think to describe it is folk rock rooted in the style of his fellow Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell, but adapted to function in the age of (what would eventually be named) yacht rock. There’s also an island breeze blowing in from Jimmy Buffet’s boat, and maybe a drop of Julio Iglesias’ martini, for class.
While I won’t go track-by-track, I’ll share my thoughts on a few highlights. The opening track, “Forty-Five Years”, is not a Raffi composition, but it’s just right for his voice and his style, and it feels all his own. When I first listened to this album on YouTube a few years ago, I was so moved by this song and the richness of his voice that I was inspired to write my own song in a similar style. I’ve never released that song, and perhaps I never will, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that, by coming back to this album this year, I immediately found myself writing another song. This album has a way of moving the muses.
The second track is a lovely, personal song called, “Little Kristin January 28”. While this is not a song for children, it was clearly written for a child, which is a bold choice for the second track on an album that would very much like you to know it’s for adults. In a way, this is part of the same folk sub-genre of songs like “For Baby (For Bobbie)” or “A Baby Just Like You”, both of which are John Denver compositions I love, but this one seems to be from an uncle to a niece, not from a father to a son (nor from a John Denver to a Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter). That sort of brings it closer to the uncle-like relationship depicted in Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Clair”, though it doesn’t give me the creeps the way that song does. It’s a beautiful and surprisingly sophisticated song. To my ignorant, white, western ears, much of the song sounds vaguely “Eastern”, for lack of a better term, but in a way that feels specific to Raffi. I know that he was born in Cairo, Egypt, and is of Armenian descent, so I suspect that he was probably bringing some of the family history into his song about the newest member of his family, and the result is a blend of styles the feels thoroughly genuine.
The two songs that follow feel like they may have been initially intended for children’s albums but didn’t quite fit, so they found their way here. I’m not sure they fit here either. The rest of the album, however, fits together pretty nicely. Most of these songs are truly beautiful, with “Lovelight” being a standout. You could play that all night on repeat, just vibing, and it would fill your spirit.
“Evangeline” is my favorite though. It puts me in a place, a time, a feeling, and a relationship – I suddenly find myself completely in love with somebody I’ve never heard of named Evangeline! There’s some electronic sound on this song that’s playing (almost singing) the same melody as Raffi, so their voices blend with the acoustic sounds to form a new sound, almost a new entity, that I feel lighting up some part of my brain that no other song can touch.
Adult Entertainment has never been released on CD or streaming. I’m glad that this new, unofficial YouTube upload has cleaned up the sound as much as possible, removing the record pops and crackles that, while charming, can be distracting when coming from your phone instead of an actual record. I understand why this music isn’t out there in a more official capacity – it isn’t meant for kids to hear it, especially with Raffi’s light swearing on the first track, so anybody who went to Raffi’s page on Spotify and shuffled all his songs would eventually get an unwelcome surprise. Even still, I think it would be wonderful if they’d release it under Raffi’s full name (Raffi Cavoukian) or any moniker that would prevent brand confusion. It means a lot to me, and if you’ve bothered to read this, I hope it will someday mean something to you.
I should also say, for the record, that Raffi’s work beyond this album is such a joy. Perhaps that goes without saying – we all know that “Bananaphone” is just about the happiest song ever recorded, and I hope you have it in every single one of your playlists. I’m glad that he’s recorded so much more for me to explore of the next few years, and it seems like he still records sometimes. Lately, he’s started recording songs that are overtly political, which is a bold move. If you’re just learning this, it might make you nervous if you recall how Ray Stevens, another playful songwriter who found surprising success decades before I was born but had a legacy that later inspired me, unfortunately went on to make politically conservative songs for YouTube about climate activists being “gullible”. Oof.
The good news is that Raffi is quite the opposite. In 2007, he released the single “Cool It” in support of climate advocacy, and in 2019, he released the song “Young People Marching” in support of Greta Thunberg. He also wrote the song “Wave of Democracy” for Bernie Sanders in 2016. He is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism and the founder of the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring. The “honouring” part is key – it’s his respect for his audience the makes the music work.
I know it’s very on-brand for me to express affection for the time when an artist associated with children’s entertainment made something for adults – I am, after all, the man who can ramble on longest about Jim Henson’s Labyrinth out of anybody in the world – so maybe this album recommendation won’t mean much coming from me. What’s interesting to me about this is that I don’t really care as much when an artist who creates for adults tries to make something for children. That usually results in talking down. As I say this, I can think of exceptions, and I’m sure you can too, but I nevertheless think there’s something special about getting some experience creating for kids that can be taken into creating for adults. Raffi figured out early that the way to connect with kids was to speak to human feelings in a genuinely human way, and he kept doing that with Adult Entertainment. What I don’t hear in this album is the sound of somebody who feels like he has something to prove.
In college, I put down my puppets to try to prove that I was a real filmmaker. Then I found I wasn’t really motivated to make films after college. I eventually fell out of love with movies. Now I find myself slowly, somewhat reluctantly getting back to my puppetry roots as a way to get back into filmmaking. It turns out, whether I like it or not, this medium that some may see as juvenile is one of the best tools I have to connect with people in an impactful way. Maybe that’s why I found myself getting into this Raffi album more than ever before. Maybe I can be the reason you get into it too.
Join the conversation in the comments below if you think Raffi should release an album called Adult Beluga!
by J.D. Hansel
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