Raffi's Growing Pains; The Children's Crooner Becomes an Emblem of Crisis - The Washington Post

He is carrying a lot of pain, this Raffi. 'I clearly have heardthe urgency of the Earth's cry in the last few years,' he says. 'Ireally heard it to every cell of my body.'

He feels all of the Earth's horrifying wounds. Punctures in theozone. Toxic scabs on the landscape. Cauterized rain forests.Nuclear dandruff. Such a depressing and huge burden for one man tobear - especially a man whose job used to be making little boys andgirls happy, who is still without question the most popularchildren's singer in the English-speaking world.

Once he was an entertainer whose songs rarely went deeper than'Gotta shake, shake, shake my sillies out, and wiggle my wagglesaway.'

Now Raffi asks: 'What has happened to our appropriate righteousindignation when our family's health is being threatened by peoplewho perpetuate deceit? Where is our appropriate anger, where is ourappropriate sadness for the state of this beautiful planet?'

Sitting businesslike behind a desk in his record company officehere, he talks in that comforting, patient, uniquely Canadian tone -as well modulated as Mister Rogers's, with a voice just asrecognizable to kids. But he isn't that old Raffi, the full-bearded,moon-faced minstrel to generations of toddlers, he of 'Baby Beluga'and 'The Bowling Song' and 'Six Little Ducks.' The old Raffi stillexists, yes, preserved like a specimen in the grooves of the nineplatinum and gold discs that hang on the walls at TroubadourRecords: 7 million copies sold, and still selling briskly.

But the man so beloved by children will no longer play forchildren. He will not write songs for them. The new Raffi writesangry music now, for adults. He talks of the 'diminishedinheritance' that has resulted from overpopulation and pollution.And he declares: 'I will not bring children into the world, I knowthat. I know that's a decision for my life.'

Raffi, the children's friend, childless. It's not as terrible aletdown as Pee-wee Herman in the porn theater, but it still seems... sad. And harsh. Sure, the world's got problems - it always has- but to deny oneself the love of children?

'I don't think it's harsh at all,' Raffi says, his voice andface placid. 'It's a tough decision but I think it's a very lovingone.'

This Raffi is saying things now that he's never been able tosay before. Things that may bother all those parents who love himfor what he used to be.

Nobody is ever fully what we think they are. We like to thinkthat children's entertainers would make great parents. We like tothink of them as children themselves, in a way.

Raffi Cavoukian is nearly 44, going gray in the beard andaround the temples. His long marriage, to a kindergarten teacher whohelped launch his career, is over. She filed for divorce last month.He has been in therapy to deal with his 'inner wounds.' You sensethat his own childhood was not particularly happy.

True, it was not idyllic, he admits, and some of the painpersists. But he says this has nothing to do with who Raffi istoday, does not explain his recent transformation. And on thesubject of his childhood, Raffi will tolerate no further inquiries.

The `Transition'

People who know the old Raffi - the millions of parents wholearned his songs by heart, by dint of endless repetition ('Wannahear Raafffiii, Mommmmy'), and learned to sing lovingly andunashamedly along, even if they sounded idiotic - those people are abit confused by the new Raffi.

Some parents who bought his latest album, 'Evergreen Everblue,'thinking it was another patented upbeat Raffi product - it wasmistakenly placed in the children's music racks - were upset tofind lyrics that take enviro-guilt to a new level: In the reggae-rapnumber 'What's the Matter With Us,' Raffi demands, 'Why are wepolluting our children? There's no future in that.'

They found childish harmonies applied to acrid lyrics like'Shut down the spread of atomic waste.' They found a few of the oldsingable songs, recycled from previous albums, and new tunes thicklycoated with Hallmark-style profundities. (From 'Alive andDreaming': 'I am free and I am singing/ I am warm and I ambreathing/ I'm alive and I am dreaming.')

But no matter what he sings, Raffi says, he still loveschildren: 'It's a mistake to suggest that I am turning my back onthem.' He does concerts now for an older crowd - teenagers, parents,teachers - hoping to convert them to his cause for the sake of'future generations.' He had considered making an environmentalchildren's album, but decided that 'it's not the job of a 3-year-oldto heal the Earth. It's not fair.'

But it is Raffi's job. The singer who became famous and wealthythanks to the consumption-crazed baby boom generation now preachesagainst acquisition. He gives large sums to environmental groups,crusades to save indigenous people in Malaysian rain forests,attends organic farming conclaves, will attend the Earth Summit inRio this week.

He gave up his affluent lifestyle in Toronto to live in abarely furnished apartment here in British Columbia, the PacificCoast province that's called 'the California of Canada.' Vancouveris a mecca for counterculturalists and activists - Greenpeace wasfounded here 21 years ago, and the city is now enacting the toughestauto pollution standards in North America. Raffi drives a HondaCivic and says he sometimes takes the bus.

He took a sabbatical from doing children's concerts inSeptember 1988 and never went back on tour. He and his wife, DeborahPike, who had been together since 1973, separated. He turned 40. Hecontracted chronic fatigue syndrome, the mysterious 'yuppie flu.'

It has all the markings of a midlife crisis. Raffi refers toall this as 'my transition.'

There are other abrupt and profound transitions in music:Dylan's conversion to Christianity. Lennon's detour into Yoko'savant-garde caterwauling. Cat Stevens's transformation into YusefIslam. And now, Raffi Cavoukian from strummer of rug rat ballads toklaxon of environmental ruin.

In Raffi's case, 'it was a mind-blowing transition to attempt,'says one associate. 'He owned the children's market. It would belike Elvis, the king of rock-and-roll, wanting to become an operasinger.'

Raffi's album 'Evergreen Everblue,' released two years ago, diedin the adult pop market.

Granted, Raffi is breaking new ground here. The last overtlypro-Earth hit song was Marvin Gaye's 'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)'in 1971. Some rap and rock groups are exploring ecological themes,but even Raffi's distributor, MCA, admits that his new stylepresents 'a marketing challenge.'

Raffi, usually a gentle soul, grows prickly and defensive aboutany criticism of his work. He yearns for acceptance by the popestablishment, Top 40 airplay, a video in MTV rotation.

'Consider the irony of 12- to 15-year-olds watching MTV, whohave grown up with Raffi's music, and Raffi puts out an MTV video,and MTV won't play it,' he says, his indignation rising for thefirst time in several hours of conversation. 'It's ludicrous.Absolutely ludicrous!'

He says reviewers didn't understand 'the fundamentaluniqueness' of his 'Evergreen Everblue' album, that it established awholly new genre. He defends its title track - a single that got noU.S. airplay - as 'a tremendous song.' The tune is anthemic andcatchy enough, but the lyrics bludgeon. ('Amazon is calling/ `Helpthis planet Earth'/ With voices from the jungle/ `Help this planetEarth' ' etc.).

'It's as good as anything the Beatles wrote,' Raffi says.

Dealing with `Denial'

Yes, like any star, Raffi has an ego. And his ego fails toentertain two possibilities: (1) People don't want to hear hismessage, and (2) he's trying to do something he's not very good at.

A brilliant writer of children's songs doesn't necessarilymake a brilliant writer of adult lyrics. Consider that a great manyauthors - Kipling, Twain, Eliot, Dickens - produced classic workenjoyed by generations of children. But how many children's writershave gone on to adult popularity and acclaim?

The main thing is, Raffi wants to be taken seriously, no easyfeat for an artist whose choruses went 'Quack, quack, quack.'

Now he wants to become something of an environmental spokesman,a unifier of many causes. Raffi was the first major musician torefuse to release his CDs with wasteful long-box packaging, and hismarketing people see him as uniquely positioned to capitalize on twogreat '90s themes: the family and environmentalism. You may beseeing him more on television and in the movies (he sought a voicerole in the animated feature 'Ferngully ... the Last Rainforest' butended up just contributing a song to the soundtrack). The guy whowore funny hats and loud Hawaiian shirts is now understatedlyinternationalist chic in a cotton shirt, with black jeans and blackReeboks and a shoulder bag woven in Guatemala and a rattan wristletfrom the endangered Penan tribe. He believes his old audience'sdifficulty in letting go is 'compounded by the fact that my newmusic is now speaking to areas of our consciousness where a certaindenial has been in place for a long time. People don't want theirold friend Raffi to necessarily come along and say, `Oh by the way,it's time to wake up here.' '

Outside his office, gulls groan and cars bleat, nature andmachine competing to coexist on the waterfront in one of Canada'smost picturesque cities. And Raffi goes on about the Earth's crisisand how to reorient our thinking, his declarations arriving likeplanks in a platform. They sometimes seem like efforts to wall offthe past.

He has already issued ground rules for this session. He wantshis ex-wife and his old collaborators off-limits. They are not thestory anymore. Here's a list of people to talk to: world-classenvironmentalists like David Suzuki of the Canadian BroadcastingCorp. and Jeremy Rifkin of the 'Beyond Beef' campaign. A few otherassociates, most of whom have known Raffi only since histransformation.

There are only the barest bones of biography: He and hisfamily arrived in Canada from Cairo when he was 10. He spoke noEnglish. His family is Armenian, part of the diaspora that beganwith the 1915 massacre of Christian Armenians by the Muslim Turks.His father was a renowned portrait photographer who used theprofessional name Cavouk.

Raffi will loosen up as the daylong session proceeds, as heeats macrobiotic food and sushi (fish is the only flesh he allows inhis 'modified vegetarian' diet), visits Vancouver's beach, its parksand forests. As he gets closer to the Earth, he seems to get closerto himself.

Something else will happen, something fascinating. He will moveseamlessly from the subject of the planet's ills into the jargon ofthe psychologically abused - comparing our 'dysfunctionalcivilization' to a 'dysfunctional family.' Like victims of lovelessupbringings, he says, humanity is 'in denial' about the extent ofthe damage that has been wrought to the planet.

He will try to explain that dealing with his own problems - acareer transition and divorce - helped him better understand theEarth's pain. He believes that feeling pain is an important part ofself-discovery.

'I'm serving my life's purpose,' he says, unsmilingly. 'I'venever been happier.' The Causes Left Behind Raffi started his musical career hoping to change the world. Afterlearning English, he picked up his first guitar at age 16, became acoffeehouse folkie, singing the '60s protest music of Pete Seegerand his own love songs. A friend from those days compares the earlyRaffi to John Denver - a competent, earnest vocalist and guitaristwithout 'life-shattering talent.'

Raffi enrolled at the University of Toronto but dropped out inhis sophomore year, to his parents' chagrin, to pursue music. But hedrew no real crowds until he switched from folk to children's music,at the suggestion of his girlfriend's mother. Debi Pike, whom helater married, and her fellow teacher friends, Bert and BonnieSimpson, would become collaborators on his first album, 'SingableSongs for the Very Young,' recorded in 1976 - an album that stillsells a thousand copies a week.

The album was cut on an eight-track recorder in the rec room ofa suburban ranch home in Hamilton, Ontario. Dan Lanois and hisbrother Bob did the engineering. 'I think Raffi recorded that albumfor $1,700,' Dan recalls.

Dan Lanois' most recent production project was U2's comeback,'Achtung Baby.' He is probably now the most highly regarded producerin rock music, having guided several smash U2 and Peter Gabrielalbums. He laughs when reminded that he played mandolin on 'SingableSongs.'

'It happened at a naive time for everybody,' he says from NewOrleans, where he has a studio and is working on his own album. 'Thegood records often happen under those circumstances; you get throwntogether and it captures the mood at the time, the commitment of thepeople doing it.'

Simpler times, and somewhat magical. The first album,self-marketed by Raffi from his car, took a while to catch on, butthe musicianship and intelligence stood apart from anything else inthe children's market. By 1978, Raffi quit playing adult music forgood - a decision that agonized him. He felt a calling in adultmusic, issues music - 'I had a lot emotionally invested in it,' hesays today.

But the crowds - and the sales - lay in kids' music. Hisrecords were garnering acclaim - they were geared tograde-schoolers, and teachers admired their educational content andlack of patronizing and sexist stereotypes; parents liked theirsoothing effect on rowdy kids. Raffi albums, more than one criticobserved, did not drive adults screaming from the room in the samemanner as, say, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Album followed album, withincreasingly sophisticated studio work, and more grown-up messages.Raffi parses his old albums today and finds the seeds of his currentactivism.

The song 'Thanks a Lot' celebrates 'our common bounty,' hesays. 'All I Really Need' was 'my first anti-consumerism song, avery powerful protest song - except that rich people wouldn't thinkabout it that way because it was so positive.'

But if Raffi was planting subliminal socialist messages, he wasalso reaping the capitalist bounty of the Reagan '80s. The parentsof his audiences were yuppies who could afford tapes and concerts.True, Raffi never hawked T-shirts on his tours or signed corporateendorsement deals - he has spurned million-dollar offers to endorsetoys, candy and cartoons, says his lawyer, Ron Finer - but he neverunderestimated his art's value as a commodity. Raffi's lyrics havebeen published in a series of a dozen 'Raffi Songs to Read' books;there's a deal in the works to create a Raffi-inspired environmentalcurriculum for schools.

As the '80s wore on, the concerts kept selling out, the famegrowing - Raffi was awarded the Order of Canada for work withchildren - but something was happening he didn't like. His audiencewas getting too young. Raffi had originally aimed his songs atkindergarten and grade-school kids, who could at least understandthem.

Now he'd peer out from the stage and see every other seat emptybecause toddlers and babies were perched on their parents' laps. 'Itgot to the point that pregnant women were coming to the concerts;they knew he was someone special and it would be a good experience'for the fetus, says lawyer Finer.

'He had an autograph-signing at FAO Schwarz here in New Yorkand they lined up at 4 in the morning,' Finer recalls. 'Raffi wasasked to have words of wisdom for kids 6 months old, for childrenwith disabilities - it had a Lourdes quality to it. It was no longera positive experience. ... Raffi could talk to first- orsecond-graders. He always felt he was a serious performer with aserious message.'

So he took his sabbatical and decided he had to return, after11 years, to the music that had moved him to pick up a guitar in thefirst place: protest music. In September 1989, Raffi staged hisfarewell concert with his Rise and Shine Band at Carnegie Hall.Scalpers got $300 a ticket. He had reached a point of closure. Thatyear he got a Grammy nomination for his final children's album, alive album. The last track on it is 'Everything Grows.' The lastwords Raffi sings are: 'Mamas do and papas too. Everything grows.' Insights

Raffi's growth has led him to various epiphanies. One involvesthe beluga whale, which he wrote about so whimsically years ago. Helearned that the belugas in the St. Lawrence River are 'swimming,living toxic waste sites.' In his concerts now, he sings the old'Baby Beluga' song and lectures about how only 450 are left in theriver, down from 5,000 - poisoned by pollutants.

He devours books with the fervor of a grad student, and liveslike one. 'Voluntary simplicity' is how he describes his lifestyle.

His apartment has a great view of the Pacific but little else:a small sofa and recliner, a boombox, some CDs, an organ, threeacoustic guitars, three accordions. Loosely drawn nudes, his ownart, hang on the walls. He lives alone, 'married to his work,' butmakes a point of flirting with a table of women at a sushi bar andnotes that Vancouver has many beautiful women. He isn't usuallyrecognized by adults, though. Unless they have toddlers in tow.

It is the old music, the nine-record catalogue, that affordshim the luxury to pursue his causes.

'You know, I don't covet affluence,' he says. 'Lately I'vefallen in love with accordions, and I have a number of them, but Ithink that I can be forgiven for my passion,' he chuckles, 'for thismusical instrument that was part of my childhood. My father used toplay.'

He mentions that his father played 'all over Cairo - he waspopular.' And that's as much as he will divulge. He deflectsquestions about his adjustment to a radically different culture as a10-year-old.

And there is nothing he remembers, he says, about the years inCairo.

Raffi's brother, Onnig, who is three years older, fills in somedetails. How the family, as devout Christians, often felt isolated.How Arab zealots torched a shop near his father's photo studio. Howtheir father, Artin, was horrified by the sight of Egyptian soldiersplaying soccer with a British soldier's head.

And Onnig, speaking from Toronto in a Middle Eastern accentundetectable in his brother, recalls the uprooting of the family,its migration from Cairo to Montreal and finally Toronto. And howthe Cavoukian brothers chafed under their father's 'extremelyauthoritarian' manner, as Onnig tells it. And how they reveled inthe freedom of the Canadian society - girls were even allowed in theboys' classes! How the boys rejected the old culture and grew to'despise' everything Armenian, even the father's accordion music.How Artin Cavoukian grew rich photographing famous and powerfulpeople, and wanted both boys to go into the family business, theArmenian way. Onnig agreed, at 18, but only because his father hadsuffered a heart attack and was not well enough to run the studio.But Raffi, when he grew older, resisted, wanted to follow his ownpath.

Says Onnig: 'Raffi was an honors student when he dropped out ofcollege two weeks before his second-year final exams to pursuemusic. To my parents this was a problem. You could say it was anembarrassment to my father. North American musicians were not lookedupon well by their culture. ... There was anger and frustrationbetween father and son... .

'Raffi got away from the family. He went away to England. Hewas the one who rebelled. He left any way of life my parents wereaccustomed to. He hitchhiked across the country.' He defied hisdevout parents and found a non-Armenian girlfriend, and lived withher before marriage.

It wasn't until many years later when Raffi became a success,Onnig says, that his parents realized, 'from seeing others take suchjoy in Raffi's music,' that their son had succeeded.

As Onnig puts it, they realized 'there was something to Raffi.'

They are very proud of him now, Onnig says.

What's Left Unsaid

On a peninsula in English Bay is the heavily wooded StanleyPark, a refuge from the city. Raffi sometimes comes here for thequiet and to marvel at the giant old cedar trees. He often reachesout to caress the trees, and he snacks on wild plants, Euell Gibbonsstyle. He calls out to the crows too.

He wants to show off 'the Raffi Bench,' which he donated to thepark when he buried a time capsule, including some writings and hisalbum, to be unsealed in 2001 to see if anything had changed in 10years. He tries to weave his healing themes all together - AlGore's new environmental book, Gloria Steinem's book aboutself-esteem, Mahatma Gandhi, the Earth, himself - as planesoccasionally roar overhead, drowning out conversation in the coolafternoon stillness. Raffi is playing multilayered intellectualchess. His moves are always guarded.

'Gandhi said it in the quote `We must become the change we seekin the world.' My own way of saying it is, `You can't give what youdon't have.' So in a way, if you want peace in the world, bringpeace to your heart.'

And what brought you peace?

'I've done my own inquiry into these matters over years ofstudying childhood development {and} my own sessions with therapy,to heal my own inner wounds. Every one of us has these wounds - theextent of them varies. ... {Because} of child-rearing that is morefor the convenience of the adults than it is for the actual needs ofthe child, the most well-meaning parent will still have childrenthat need to work out `their stuff.' Okay. So, I've made greatefforts to work out my stuff.'

Is this related to dysfunctional families?

'What I come to is, there's a yearning in our breast for somekind of harmony... . We are learning about dysfunction in ways thatwe have not known before. ...

'And we know that people who have been abused in childhood,whether it's sexual abuse or other trauma at the hands of alcoholicparents or whatever, we know that these people can heal. This isgreat news, it's really hopeful news.'

Portrait of Raffi, Retouched

Raffi has an old friend in Toronto named Mendelson Joe, a painterand musician who legally flopped his name because he felt like it.Joe says he thinks Raffi's message is great, but he wishes Raffiwould go back to doing music for kids.

He says of the song 'Evergreen, Everblue': 'It sucks. It'ssomething Andrew Lloyd Webber wished he had written. And AndrewLloyd Webber makes me barf.'

Joe records music too - an album every year, paying for therelease of a few thousand copies of his cassettes. He gets noairplay, but he stays with his vision. He also writes environmentalsongs, but with a much harder edge. Like 'Man rapes mother. Manrapes his mother. And the Earth is mother. There is no othermother.' Joe, large, bearded and bald, surrounded by art in his Torontostudio, finds a portrait that he painted last year of his friendRaffi, and describes it over the phone. 'It is not a happy, smilingpainting. I paint exactly what I see: He looks stern, maybe. Sad.Confused, maybe. I paint what he gives me. It looks more troubledthan anything.'

Why?

'I come from a screwed-up home and it shapes me, and it shapedhim. He's gone through a whole pile of manure dealing with hisupbringing and his father.'

Raffi's father is 78 now, and very sick, with Parkinson'sdisease. But Raffi has agreed to let Joe paint another portrait.One that's happier. One that shows Raffi playing the accordion - ared one, like the accordion his father used to play.