"Timelessness," says award-winning Southern California-based singer-songwriter Joel Rafael, "is a quality that you can't quite place, but it's about something that seems like it's always been there, and always should be there, whether it's an old house, or a mountain or a song." It aptly describes "This Is My Country," the lead track on Rafael's new album Thirteen Stories High, his first set of original material since 2000's Hopper. The April 2008 CD follows up two acclaimed collections paying tribute to the music of Woody Guthrie.