Raffa and Rainer
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Raffa and Rainer

Miami, Florida, United States | SELF

Miami, Florida, United States | SELF
Band Pop Singer/Songwriter

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"10 bands out of South Florida you should listen to now"

5. Raffa and Rainer
Easily Miami’s best folk duo, Raffa Jo Harris and Rainer Davies delivered 11 tracks of acoustic bliss on 2010’s No Mercy. Raffa’s sultry voice sweetly wavers over Rainer’s jazzy guitar noodling and they’re often accompanied by a revolving cast of local horns and strings players. While the band has a bunch of South Florida dates coming up soon, they’re also working on organizing a national tour for later this year.

- Paste Magazine


"Stolen Coal"

Raffa Harris and Rainer Davies are Miami musicians with an agenda - and surprisingly, it's not to become famous. Stolen Coal is the name of their album. Don't worry, though; it's not a collection of Christmas songs.

Twenty four-year-old Raffa and 20-year-old Rainer are Miami natives and graduates of Killian high school and the New World School of the Arts. The two had played together for years and so it seemed only natural when they united last year to create an original album, incorporating Raffa's unique guitar and vocal style and Rainer's jazz guitar talents.

Genre: like nothing you've ever heard. "Some call it acoustic folk, we call it sweet la-la... because it is," chuckled Raffa. Definitely sweet, but way more than la-la, their old-radio song styles are designed to serenade having been influenced by artists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. "Any girl with a guitar," Raffa beamed.

Both Raffa and Rainer are huge supporters of Miami's local music scene. "If you're interested in new music, it's important to explore what's around you. Anyone can buy a major label CD at a store, but wonderful music is available around the corner from you every night." The two are regulars at local music hubs like Churchill's on NE 2nd Ave. and Cornerstone, on North Miami Ave., where they play 30-minute sets every Thursday night as one of the few featured groups.

The twosome is preparing for an east coast tour slated for December, with artists Jesse Jackson and Kevin Russell. Raffa expects they'll be touring for a month in their jumbo van with a queen-size bed in the back. "We're going on tour to entertain audiences out of Miami and share each others' music. Something magical will happen, beautiful music will be made." Though they wouldn't deny signing with a major label, it's not a priority. "More important than 'making it' is making good music. We want to create something that's not so standard, something original."

For now, their haven is www.myspace.com/raffaandrainer. Four of the 13 songs on the album can be heard online. Their CD will soon be available at Sweat Records, 2320 NE 2nd Avenue, and upcoming gigs will be posted online. Raffa can be contacted through the site if you'd like to hear the rest of the album sooner; maybe she'll serenade you if you buy a CD. But if you wait until it's out in stores, acoustic folk will be the most likely genre you'd find it under. Raffa's outlook? "Acoustic folk? I can deal with that. But sweet la-la is better."
-By Dara Bramson

http://www.outloud.com/2005/Nov2005/raffa.htm - Outloud Newsgazine


"Raffa and Rainer: Folk and Fairy Wings"

Some musicians are inextricably tied to the era that spawned them – for instance, a hair metal band would generate few fans at a 1950’s school dance, as Michael J. Fox’s shred guitar on “Johnny B. Goode” in Back to the Future demonstrates. Others, however, possess an aura of timelessness, their music equally at home on an iPod, an eight track, or a dusty phonograph. Miami’s Raffa and Rainer are such musicians.

Playing folk music with traces of jazz and the blues, Raffa Jo Harris sings with a Billie Holiday vibrato and Joni Mitchell sweetness accompanied by Rainer Davies’s lush fingerpicking, arriving at a warm, intimate sound that wraps around audiences like a weightless cocoon. Formed last spring, Raffa and Rainer already perform with an uncanny symbiosis, though their musical paths have followed decidedly different trajectories.

Raffa graduated from Miami Killian High School with aspirations of a theater career but self-doubt and post-graduate anxiety left her unable to act in front of strangers. For fun she wrote four songs with the few guitar chords she learned from teacher Mr. Leg but kept the compositions to herself. A stint go-go dancing with local performance artists Circ X rebuilt her confidence, and after attending open mic nights at Churchill’s Pub for two months she worked up the courage to actually step onstage.

Rainer, meanwhile, attended the New World School of the Arts where he played guitar in the nationally award-winning jazz band. Acquainted through mutual friends, Raffa sang standards like “All of Me” as Rainer strummed along at parties, but it wasn’t until Rainer was studying at the University of Miami’s jazz program that the two collaborated on Raffa’s original material.

The duo landed a weekly gig at vegan café Tree of Zion, solidifying their musical partnership in front of audiences of two to seven people. Once Raffa had written enough songs they recorded their debut album, Stolen Coal, in the living room of friend Nick Kruge, a U of Miami music engineering student.

On the album, Raffa sings tales of “heartache, love, and all that stupidity” with a wry, impish sense of humor that perfectly complements her distinctive voice, which effortlessly vacillates from childlike to soulful. Rainer adds subtle embellishments with his hollowbody guitar, playing with the taste and restraint of a veteran Nashville session man.

“I think of myself as more of an orchestrator than a guitar player,” says Rainer. “Lots of textures, a little percussion for Raffa to sit on.”

Late this summer they were invited to play every Thursday at the newly opened Design District arts space Cornerstone, where they filled out the bill of singer-songwriter Adonis Cross and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jackson, whom the two had long admired.

“I met him at Churchill’s; he looked like an Allman Brother,” says Raffa, “and then he played and I was like, ‘oh my gosh, that’s my favorite thing ever,’ because he reminded me of a young Tom Waits.”

Jackson was so impressed by the duo he asked Rainer to play guitar in his band and made plans for a joint tour along with saxophonist Kevin Russell. Then Russell left for New York to bake bread and the tour fell through, though Raffa and Rainer are determined to make it happen in the coming months.

“We’re doing a series of living room fundraisers,” says Raffa, referring to their recent shows at friends’ houses. “No kids and no drunks allowed.”

In the meantime, Raffa hopes to record another album with Nick Kruge and concentrate on her favorite hobby: constructing elaborate fairy wings with wire hangers and nylons.

“They’re not your everyday fairy wings,” says Kruge. “They’re pretty intense.”

- The Biscayne Boulevard Times


"Best Pop Act"

Best Pop Act

Posted October 18 2006

Raffa and Rainer
Myspace.com/raffaandrainer

"We wear our rainbow sparkles on the inside," singer-guitarist Raffa Harris proclaims on her band's MySpace page. The sparkles may be hidden, but this acoustic-folk duo lets light shine throughout the flower-child-like music that it whimsically describes as "sweet la-la." The group's vintage sound urges a close listen, and it's easy to imagine the faint crackling of an old phonograph player behind Harris' silky vocals. Last year, after a successful run on the road with fellow Miami-based folk-rocker Jesse Jackson, Harris and Rainer Davies independently released their debut album, Stolen Coal. The CD can be purchased at Sweat Records (see Best Record Store), located inside Churchill's Pub in Miami, where the group often performs.

http://www.southflorida.com/citylink/sfe-cl-bestof06ent01,0,6988244.story?coll=sfe-cl-top-promo - City Link


"Essential Selections: 5 Local Bands You Need to Hear"

Raffa and Rainer
When she’s not knitting, Raffa Jo Harris writes cozy, charming, timeless songs that rip your heart out of your chest and hand it back to you in a sandwich bag. A crooning siren, she sings them in a voice that sounds like it should be coming from some kind of mountain woman, not a Miami gal who grew up, and still enjoys, booty dancing to bass music. Along with her guitar partner, Rainer Davies, Raffa has carved out a place for herself in the frantic Miami music scene, that of the female troubadour. “It’s interesting; doing what we do down here. We’re not going to get enormous gigs, but there are a lot of people who want something that’s rootsy and heartfelt without the super-pretty people in front,” says Harris. In their two years together, they’ve earned a following all over town and self-released a CD entitled Stolen Coal, which has been rapidly selling through their MySpace page (“It’s nice having fans in Wiconsin,” says Harris.) They also toured from here to Montreal in a Dodge Caravan with a queen-size bed in the back with good friend and local hobo rockstar, Jesse Jackson. “I’d say it was awesome … in retrospect,” says Harris. “At the time, I got sick and it was exhausting, but we met so many beautiful people. We’re going again this fall.”

By Jason Jeffers
April 26, 2007

http://www.944.com/miami/more.php?article=4558 - 944 Magazine: Miami


"In South Florida, Tropical Bohemia in the Makings"

.......Churchill’s has long been home to Miami’s small punk world. Over the last few years, in sojourns to other clubs like Luna Star Cafe in North Miami, as well as under his own roof, Mr. Daniels noticed that the most interesting sounds coming out of these musicians were acoustic. Young troubadours like the Tom Waits-esque Jesse Jackson were playing their songs as if it were 1960 and Miami were Greenwich Village. Mr. Daniels asked two of those musicians, Raffa Jo Harris and Rainer Davies, to host an open mike every Wednesday. In more than a year the series, Rock a Little Softer, has become an incubator for local talent. You might hear the echoes of Kate Bush in the strummed musings of Sharlyn Evertsz, Sol Ruiz’s neo-hippie soul, the wonderfully retro harmonies of Sirens & Sealions and always, Raffa & Rainer’s vintage-quality jazz folk...... - NY Times


"Time for Some R&R"

With lyrics that seem lifted from some dusty leather volume hidden on an out-of-the-way shelf, Raffa & Rainer make music that writers love — full of characters and stories wrapped in a modern wit and a classic sense of harmony. Along with Rachel Goodrich and Jesse Jackson, the duo has redefined what it means to be a Miami musician. It’s epitomized by the title of their on-again/off-again open-mike night, Can You Rock a Little Softer? And where better to rock softer than the glowing confines of the Books & Books courtyard, a veritable centrifuge of characters and stories?

When Rainer’s expert picking and Raffa’s sweet falsetto waft across the patrons sipping wine and espresso at the wrought-iron café tables this Friday, confused tourists might think they’ve wandered into 1920s Paris. And who’s to say they haven’t? - Miami New Times


"Softer Rock"

Softer Rock
The Very Short Story of Raffa, Rainer and A Pretentious New Writer

By David Tanner

I sit here, needle in hand, delicately sewing my tongue to the inside lining of my right cheek.

I’m surfing the Internet with my feet to dictionary.com, past the annoying pop-ups I manage, after many missteps (ah ha), to find the entry I’m looking for: pretension.

Certainly folk acoustic Raffa and Rainer don’t fit the definition. (Try your hand at surfing, preferably with your hands, to their Myspace site at myspace.com/raffaandrainer.) Don’t get confused by the profile pic, and stay a while.

Oh my, great googly-moogly, do they rock.

Truthfully, until recently, I hadn’t taken the opportunity to peruse this modest sampling of their catalog, and through their storied career I’ve managed to show up late, and just miss their performance, every time. However, after an afternoon listening to their latest album “Stolen Coal,” I dragged my weary ass to a performance at Books & Books in Coral Gables.

Books & Books is killer, a long-standing local bookstore that owner Mitch Kaplan has kept going in spite of the opening of one big-store-book-barn after another. (In your face corporate tyranny!)

I showed up, late again (doh!), with my wife and kid in tow. Apparently I’m quite the professional. I declined an apricot ale from a friend, and found that Raffa and Rainer were set up in the central courtyard just past the entrance where locals were busy assisting me with my consternation over definitions.

The main seating area was packed with patrons, pinkies extended toward the sky, shooting derisive glances at one clique or another as Raffa crooned on. She has a brilliant voice — it’s as if she’s at times channeling Billie Holiday while aptly holding down the rhythm guitar, while Rainer accents her tone with perfectly placed pluckings of juicy goodness. At this performance the duo was accompanied by a bassist cradling an upright, true to their motto of “rock a little softer.” Their style is a folksy acoustic feel. Raffa illustrates her musings on life and love in a way that makes you wanna light a candle, make a salad, and kick back on your favorite front porch swing, lazily watching fireflies careen through the night and crash into your cars windshield, trying to make sweet love to the flashing LED of your car alarm.

Unfortunately this is Miami, and it’s the middle of summer. I smiled as the chic crowd lightly daubed at their collective sweat-beaded brow, high-priced makeup dripping into the merlot. Don’t be fooled, the Raffa and Rainer faithful were there in force, mixing it up with the need-to-be-seen Coral Gables regulars.

I got a chance to talk to the duo during a break between the two sets, as newly-minted fans clamored for a disc and personal interface.

I should have done more prep work.

Turns out the album is old, and between appearances Raffa and Rainer are currently in the studio working on a new album that is due in a few months. I asked about the Wednesday night open mic that the two used to run at Churchill’s Pub in Miami and was greeted with a vacant stare.

“We stopped doing that a while ago,” Raffa said with a smile. (Both she and Rainer were quite gracious, even with my bumble-assed interview style.) I slinked away to my family and crawled back to suburbia with my tail between my legs, knowing full well just how pretentious a guy writing a music column can be.

Maybe next time I'll have that beer.

Raffa and Rainer will perform on Friday, July 31 at 9 p.m., at Soya e Pomodoro, 120 N.E. First St., in Miami. The show is free.

They will also perform at 9 p.m. on Aug. 1 at the Dada Restaurant and Bar, 52 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach, free; At 7 p.m. on Aug. 22 at Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St, West Palm Beach, free; and at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 10 at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Fort Lauderdale, 3970 N.W. 21st Ave, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $12.

- The Lead Miami Beach


"Best of Miami 2006 - Best Songwriter"

Raffa Jo Harris
A spacy hippie chick raised in Miami, Raffa Jo Harris is half of folk duo Raffa and Rainer. Her beautifully sensitive ballads are about coincidences, friends, love -- all the sweet things in life -- and they're usually prefaced with a kind of story-behind-the-song. She's often compared to a sweeter Joni Mitchell, and, says one fan, she can make the hardest person go all mushy. Perhaps her next gig should be on I-95 during rush hour.


http://www.miaminewtimes.com/bestof/award.php?oid=oid:120398&section=oid:13678&year=2006

- Miami New Times


Discography

Stolen Coal, 2005
No Mercy, 2009

Photos

Bio

Hailing from the murky swamps of the South, a sweet voice with the best guitar this side of the Suwannee River is what you'll expect. What you won't expect is that these characters ain't from 'Bama. They emerge from that sprawling metropolis Miami, Fl, a place known more for its dance clubs and neon than moonlit swooning and swaying. Raffa Jo on vocals and guitar makes you feel like you've fallen into a tender dream. Rainer Davies on various strings plucks out a groove so steady you'll be wanting to buy up some real estate in his neighborhood. These two have come together in their live performance to forge a sound not easily categorized, but if you'd like to venture there it would be something described as sweet la - la, gypsy folk, dirty honey - in a jar sittin' on a windowsill next to the shoo-fly pie. See....? Told you so.