For booking - contact booking@rafepearlman.com

BIOGRAPHY

"In a powerful form of musical redemption, Rafe Pearlman entrances audiences with his rarified vocal harmonics, emotionally intelligent songwriting, and magnetic performance style. Rafe's music is experiential, revealing a holographic collection of images, tempos, and tones. Beautiful and at times dark melodies, uplifting lyricism, and an inspired delivery characterize his work. From haunting ballads, mystical chants and impassioned arias to shaking and sexy rock meets electronic, this modern minstrel's lustrous and evocative voice unfurls something akin to communion through song. Steeped in diverse world music traditions, Pearlman's "no frills" presentation of voice and solo guitar is as personable as it is ecstatic. His stories, poems, and travelogues - weaving the spirit of nature, and the divine, into the human experience - range from slow and drawling, to driving and deliberate. These inspirational songs - like great lovemaking, or equally fervent prayer - ring out with pure and sweet devotion." Maya Borhani-Island News

Born in San Francisco, and currently based in Seattle, Rafe draws his material from childhood years spent along the shores of Cape Cod and meandering the Alaskan bush, and later explorations of Pacific Northwest forests and waterways, Hawaii's majestic abundance, and his inner and outer travels worldwide. He began investigating the intersections of music and art at thirteen, followed by studies at the Art Institute of Seattle, and participation in Seattle's early "grunge" scene. In the summer of 1999, he sailed for two weeks along Canada's Inside Passage, singing to and recording with whales, as part of a larger research project exploring human relations with aquatic mammals. As lead singer and songwriter for the world folk trio Riveroots, his seminal release, The Wandering Road, exposed rare terrain where lullaby combines with over and undertones of rock, folk, blues, and ethnic/world music in a luminous balance of rhythm, harmony, and spiritual acuity. Pearlman released a solo record in 2002 entitled "In Moment", which features the usual diverse instrumentation and broad stylistic approach. He is currently working on a new record and the formation of a new band.

On stage, Pearlman's performances are brimming with power, beauty and raw emotion, whether playing solo, or with a full band backing him up. He can be found doing intimate acoustic performances to full blown rock shows at Seattle's premiere clubs. His current "Red Rose Thieves" line-up often includes Patrick Strole (hurdy-gurdy/guitars), Phil Georgas (bass/sarod), Matthew Burgess (percussion,drums), David Brunn (tablas), and Genevieve Walker (violin). Each show is different...

Pearlman has shared the stage with Babatunde Olatunji, Zakir Hussain, George Brooks, Jai Uttal, Sky Cries Mary, Joanne Rand, Ashish Khan, Paul Winter, and others, from a performance at the Shantipi International Music Festival in Israel, to headlining Seattle clubs The Crocodile Cafe and Tractor Tavern, a grass-roots tour through Australia, to up and down the West Coast. Last fall he stole the show at the Mother Earth Music and Arts Festival in Bath, New York, where he was re-scheduled for an unprecedented second performance after enormous popular reception to his first!. Rafe Pearlman knows "it only takes a simple song" to delight the heart and uplift the spirit, and he's the man with the golden voice to do so.