Ralph
Ralph Alfonso is a poet, musician, artist and a publisher from Vancouver,
Canada. In the early 80's he ran a label Attic Records which released first
Soft Boys album for the North American market Underwater Moonlight
and later first two albums by Katrina and The Waves. Then he moved on to be
a head music director at EMI Canada. But his artistic and romantic spirit
led him to leave this prestigious position for an adventure in Vancouver and
soon he had to start his career from scratch. Most of his time in the 90's
he spent as a designer and art director for various bands even some speed
metal bands. He designed a really large number of covers.
At the same time he started his poetry and art fanzine. Even though he was
active on Canada's music scene since the 60's, he never performed live until
mid nineties when he and his friends did a jazzy poetry performance on Canadian
television. People really dug it, and he recorded three discs in that style
ever since with his band which he simply called Ralph.
Ralph's last album in 2001 is called This Is For The Night People and
it really stands behind its title. It is a collection of nice poetic and jazzy
nocturnes with obvious references to beat poets as Alan Gingsberg, Jack Kerouac
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti but I also hear a slight euro feel to it, a sophisticated
perversion of Serge Gainsbourg comes in as a nice comparison.
Ralph also came back to his musical director's activities begin a boss of
Bongobeat records,
a label that published new Kimberley Rew album and a
compilation entitled Driving In The Rain: 3am with artists affiliated
to Bongobeat which delivers a similar atmosphere to Ralph's album This
Is For The Night People.