Adam White

Correspondent

After playing to sold-out venues for decades, Raffi isn’t about to change his recipe.

“It’ll just be me, my guitar — and some bananas,” the iconic children’s singer said, adding that the fuzzy moccasins made famous in his 1984 concert video are no longer part of the act. “I wear shoes these days. Everything grows, you know?”

The title of Raffi’s show Thursday at Burlington’s Flynn Center suggests as much: The “#belugagrads Concert.”

“Most of the parents at my concerts now are Beluga Grads; by that I mean that as children, they sang Baby Beluga and other songs of mine,” said Raffi (last name Cavoukian). “So when they’re at the show, they’re experiencing it on a number of levels: They’re remembering their childhood, they’re experiencing the music as an adult with their inner child and they’re experiencing it with their own children, all at once.

“So it’s a lovely vibe in the hall, with so many Beluga Grads there.”

Raffi said Vermont’s members of what he calls the “Beluga Grad pod, to use a whale term,” are but fish in a vast continental sea of fandom.

“We estimate between 20 and 50 million Beluga Grads in Canada and the U.S.,” he said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Singable Songs for the Very Young, Raffi’s debut album which remains his largest seller — and stands as arguably the most enduring in the entire genre of children’s music. Though he has released or appeared on 28 recordings since, Raffi can’t forget how warmly embraced his breakthrough effort was.

“Singable Songs just seemed irresistible, when it first came out, for young children and families,” Raffi said. “There was something about that first recording — the song selection, the tone of my voice, the instrumentation — it was eclectic, and very fun.”

Star power

That album didn’t only put the Canadian singer on the children’s music map; it also helped fuel the rise of one of the most successful music producers in modern American rock and roll.

“Daniel Lanois was the recording engineer on my first four kids albums; that is part of why they sound so good,” Raffi said. “I gave him his first gold album: Singable Songs.”

Lanois went on to win three Grammy awards for production, helping craft several all-time classic albums including U2’s The Joshua Tree, Peter Gabriel’s So and Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind.

At the time of his ascent to the top of children’s music, Raffi had been trying to make his way as what he calls a “struggling folk singer.” He said the twist in his career path took him to a whole new level as far as how his music resonated with its audience.

“I came to understand how important singable songs for children could be in their lives, in terms of a way to express themselves and celebrate what’s fun in life,” Raffi said. “At the start of life — you’re four years old, let’s say — you’ve got songs with which to have social fun time, songs that play in your head, songs to laugh with.

“I came to see that music for kids is an important vehicle for their healthy growth and development.”

In a genre that can often be cartoonish, Raffi’s simple guitar accompaniment and down-to-earth vocal delivery maintain the folk sensibilities of the artists he counts as influences — and one in particular.

“I had so much wonderful music to mentor me, and I’m thinking specifically of Pete Seeger and his amazing career and what an inspiration he has been for me,” Raffi said, adding that two songs off his latest album, Owl Singalong, were standards for the legendary folk singer and activist. “It’s wonderful to follow in the footsteps of folk greats like Pete Seeger.

“I got to sing This Land is Your Land with Pete about four years ago at the Clearwater Music Festival that he and his wife started. I sing that song in my concerts — the Canadian as well as the American choruses.”

Feel the Bern

Raffi said part of his motivation for coming to Vermont is the inspiration he has drawn from the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders — who made This Land is Your Land his campaign anthem.

‘Maybe we could sing it together,” Raffi said. “Bernie has inspired me just as he has inspired millions of others, and continues to. He’s honest; he’s the real deal. He has consistently, for decades, been there for working people and the middle class, speaking out against the gross inequalities in wealth and income.

“He’s a people’s champion, a ‘We, the People’ candidate. I’ve been tracking U.S. news and affairs closely for a long time, and I’ve not seen anything like him. He’s the candidate of a lifetime.”

Raffi said the most natural way to express your support for Sanders was through music.

“That is what inspired me to write the song Wave of Democracy,” he said. “I think it would be a great song for people at a Bernie rally to sing. ‘We the people stand together in a wave of Democracy.’

“Can you imagine thousands of people singing that? It would certainly give me goosebumps.”

Raffi has built his career on songs that are relatable for children, and spark imagination and discussion. Though Wave of Democracy isn’t aimed at kids, Raffi hopes it will be just as effective at reaching its target audience as the rest of his music.

“It’s meant to inspire people to vote, and look at this positive campaign. I think a song like this can be a teaching tool,” he said. “When you’ve got only 40 percent of young adults having voted in your last federal election, that shows you that there is a huge need to engage (them) in the voting process. Democracy needs every one of us to be engaged. It’s not an every-four-years thing; you need to care passionately about your liberty, your freedoms.

“I’m a democracy champion. I don’t consider myself political as much as I’m for democracy,” he said. I came to Canada as an immigrant with my Armenian family, so I value liberty.”

Ideally for Raffi, the song is helping to bring attention to Sanders’ message — with which he said he is strongly aligned.

“The reason I care so much about this election and Bernie as a champion of ‘We, the People,’ is that currently there aren’t the conditions for one person, one vote,” Raffi said. “Money has a choke hold on the populace in terms of the concentrations of wealth and power, the billionaires and the ‘one percent’ as Bernie so wisely says.

“So you need to reclaim democracy, and if a song like (this) can help, that would be a good thing.”

McKibben connection

Raffi has authored 11 books; one of the three for adults, Child Honouring: How to Turn this World Around, includes a forward by the Dalai Lama. Among the causes he has championed through his writing and music is environmentalism; the latest instance being the song Green Dream off Owl Singalong. He said he’d be thrilled to see Vermont activist Bill McKibben at his show, in light of their shared level of concern for the earth and its future.

“We both love nature, and understand its importance in our lives,” Raffi said. “Bill has been a great climate change activist for a long time, and we would do well to heed his words. That’s probably the issue of the future: How are we going to manage rising global temperatures.

“There is no threat quite like climate change; it’s global, and it will impact every nation. We’re talking about the very livability, the very viability, of our lives in coming decades.”

Raffi said he would also like to extend a formal invitation to the Flynn show to Sanders and his family, to be his “guests.” He said the shared connection he feels with two of Vermont’s most vocal figures, as well as the state as a whole, makes him excited to come to Burlington.

“I’m looking forward to seeing it,” Raffi said. “It’s a place I have a fondness for because of Bernie and Bill McKibben, and I kind of get a state that has declared itself to be clean-energy. It’s going to feel good being in Burlington.”

As for Vermont’s Beluga Grads, Raffi said they can expect Thursday’s show to be in the same spirit as that ’84 classic, the VHS tape of which wore out many a family VCR in the latter half of that decade.

“When we come together to sing, we’re just going to have a great deal of fun,” he said. “It’s going to be a sing-along from start to finish, and our voices will fill the hall. It’ll be a lot of joy.”

Adam White can be reached at adamwhite.vt@gmail.com

If you go:

Raffi concert, 7 p.m. May 19 at Flynn MainStage. Tickets are $26-$36.50.

863-5966, www.flynntix.org