Joel Rafael, who grew up in Southern California and began his musical career 50 years ago as a drummer in a junior high jazz combo, has a terrific new album, Baladista, that Boomerocity.com calls "the must have Americana album of 2015" and No Depression describes as “overflowing with gentle, melodic grace." “His songs are filled with passion and compassion," says Jackson Browne. "Passion for social justice, and compassion – for those among us who have to struggle for a place at the table of American prosperity. His voice is unmistakably his own, big, warm and strong, and a conductor for the human emotions that connect us all." He has opened for Crosby, Stills and Nash, Sheryl Crow, Laura Nyro, Joan Baez, Taj Mahal, Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris, and John Lee Hooker, and released eight albums, including a remarkable tribute to Woody Guthrie. Affable, colorful, quotable, Joel shares his songs and stories with down home warmth and charm.

Lance Canales & The Flood are headed to Berkeley with a hot new album, The Blessing and the Curse, and a history of playing roots music that goes deep. “Their music is a rough-hewn amalgam of Americana, blues, folk, and rock, bashed out on old instruments,” says Ozy.com. “It feels for all the world like the real deal.” Here’s Eliza Gilkyson’s take: "The big buzz at Folk Alliance this year was around Lance Canales, who had us all on the edge of our seats as he stomped across the stage delivering a stark blues twang-and-thump set that sounded like it had been born somewhere between a back alley and a field worker's camp. If this isn't authentic roots music, then I don't know what is."

Lance grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, where he lived the life sung about in so many songs since the birth of the blues – hard labor, one room shacks, and taunting dreams of better prospects. He found those better prospects in his sister’s beat-up guitar. For years, he played solo, but in 2009, craving a fuller sound, he enlisted The Flood, Jake Finny on stand-up bass and Daniel Burt on drums. They released Elixir in 2012 and did the soundtrack for the documentary Dancing the Salmon Home. In 2013, they released a single of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee,” and the song inspired Lance to team up with Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, to raise money for a memorial headstone for the individuals who died in a plane crash in Los Gatos and have been buried in an unmarked grave. Lance “speaks for migrant workers using his stark lyrics to drive his gritty, stripped-down, bluesy brand of folk music,” says Vents Magazine. Catch this California original tonight at the Freight!

visit the Joel Rafael website

visit the Lance Canales & The Flood website