Raphael

There are several artists with this name: 1) A Spanish singer 2) A Japanese rock group ??????? 3) An American New Age artist 4) A Russian Hip-Hop & RnB artist. 1) Miguel Rafael Martos S?nchez , worldwide as Raphael, is one of the best known singers from Spain, his career began in 1959. Wide-range voice, added to his flamboyant stage personna has entertained and engaged people worldwide for more than four decades. He is also a movie and television actor. He is the father of Spanish movie director Jacobo Martos.

1) A Spanish singer
2) A Japanese rock group ???????
3) An American New Age artist
4) A Russian Hip-Hop & RnB artist.

1) Miguel Rafael Martos S?nchez , worldwide as Raphael, is one of the best known singers from Spain, his career began in 1959. Wide-range voice, added to his flamboyant stage personna has entertained and engaged people worldwide for more than four decades. He is also a movie and television actor. He is the father of Spanish movie director Jacobo Martos.

Raphael is known for acting each one of his songs while onstage, sometimes exaggerating his mannerisms for dramatic effect. He also possesses a wide vocal range, which he often used in the beginning of his career as to evoke a choirboy approach to some songs.

He was known once for being superstitious about never going onstage without at least a black shirt on (and, most often, dressed entirely in black, a la Johnny Cash). He has not been consistent with this, but he does go onstage dressed in black quite often.

Raphael's health faced a major setback in 2003, when his liver started failing due to a latent bout with Hepatitis C; he recovered successfully after a transplant. Since then he is an active organ donation promoter.

His record company, Hispavox, awarded him with an "Uranium Disc" for his album "Ayer, Hoy, Siempre" due to the impossibility of giving him 300 platinum discs - the Spanish equivalent of his 50 million record selling.


2) Raphael was in formed by leader/guitarist Kazuki and bassist Yukito. After singing karaoke with Yuki, Kazuki asked him to join the band as their vocalist. They later met Hiro, and while he initially had his doubts of dropping out of school to pursue a career with the band, his sister convinced him to join as their drummer. After playing for 2 years in the Indie's scene, they signed with For Life Music Entertainment, Inc. in 1999. On October 31, 2000, Kazuki died of a tranquilizer overdose, and the band disbanded a year later in 2001. After Kazuki's passing, Yuki and Hiro began a collaborative project named Rice, while Yukito went on to form Black Love. Its members are Yuki Sakurai (????) on vocals, Kazuki Watanabe (????, stage name: ??) on guitar, Yukito Honda (????) on bass and Kazuhiro Murata (????) on drums.


3) Raphael was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1948. Owing to a twist of fate, he was raised by an order of Benedictine nuns. It was in the cultural embrace of these European women that he first showed musical promise and learned classical music and Gregorian chant.

Making his way to San Francisco as a young adult, he donned the guise of a European count complete with obligatory velvet cape, and played gypsy violin on the streets. He dabbled in rock 'n' roll and tribal music before settling into a more academic approach to music via piano study at the San Francisco Conservatory. From there he moved to the Esalen Institute at Big Sur where he worked for ten years as a teacher and musician. It was at Esalen, known for its mix of East/West philosophies, that Raphael furthered his pan-cultural approach to composition and developed his belief in the power of music to relax and heal. It was also during this period that he met such free spirits as his friend and mentor John Lilly, and Gabrielle Roth, for whom he was a principal musical collaborator for 13 years.

In 1990 Raphael moved to his current physical and spiritual home of Maui, and married Swiss-born psychotherapist Kutira Decosterd. Together they founded the Kahua Hawaiian Institute, where they perform musically and teach Oceanic Tantra. Raphael's previous releases on the Hearts of Space label are Music to Disappear In (1989), Music to Disappear In II (1991), and Angels of the Deep (1994).