Joel Rafael is an award winning internationally recognized songwriter from north San Diego County, California. Among his accomplishments was winning the Kerrville Folk Festival "New Folk Emerging Songwriter Award" in 1995. Rafael is also considered to be one of the most natural interpreters of Woody Guthrie"s songs, and has been a featured performer at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Woody"s hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma since it"s inception a decade ago. His two most recent CDs on Inside Recordings (an independent record company started by Jackson Browne and his management team) contain over two-dozen Woody Guthrie compositions including five previously unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics to which Rafael composed the music. The lyrics were given to Joel by Nora Guthrie, Woody"s daughter, who directs the "Woody Guthrie Archives" and administrates the use of Woody"s written and illustrated works. These two releases, "Woodeye," and "Woodyboye" (The Songs of Woody Guthrie) Volumes 1 & 2, respectively, are available to bundle with the new release, "Thirteen Stories High." This album, "Thirteen Stories High," like his three recordings that preceded his Woody releases ("Joel Rafael Band," "Old Wood Barn," and "Hopper ") contain mostly original Rafael material. The radio focus track, "This Is Our Country," features David Crosby and Graham Nash. The album also includes Steve Earle"s, "Rich Man"s War," and Jack Hardy"s "I Ought To Know." Rafael has toured the U.S. extensively over the last decade both as a solo artist and with his band. Rafael is a member of the national touring cast of "Ribbon Of Highway Endless Skyway" (a revue honoring Woody"s songs and writings), which also features Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion, Jimmy LaFave, Bob Childers, Eliza Gilkyson, Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines.