9 August 1-7, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | T he numbers associated with Robert “Raven” Kraft are astronomical: 18,000 is the number of straight days that he’s jogged an eight-mile route on the sands of South Beach, 3,716 is the number of different people from around the world who have joined him on his trek, and 144,000 is the number of miles he ran over close to 50 years since he began this obsession. From ESPN and HBO to Runner’s World, the media has fo- cused on Raven’s consistency of running eight miles every day, no matter how he feels. Raven is associated with another mind- boggling number: 1,800. That’s how many songs Raven says he has written. Much like the cliché that what every actor really wants to do is direct, Miami’s most fa- mous runner really wants to be known as a singer-songwriter. Anyone who has spent time on South Beach has seen Raven doing his daily evening run. Even if he wasn’t often flocked by a posse of Raven Runners, joggers who make the pilgrimage to join his trot, he cuts a dis- tinct figure with his beard, sunglasses, and impossibly short shorts. Sometime last winter, flyers were plastered on every lamppost in South Beach with a car- toon caricature of Raven accompanied by a bunch of bird-masked musicians playing in- struments advertising Raven and the Dark Shadows. Around that time, I received a re- quest from Raven’s Instagram account asking me to check out the band’s debut concert at the Wolfsonian. I couldn’t make it, but I lis- tened to the band’s album, An Unkindness. I wrote back, telling him I enjoyed his deep- voiced Americana, which reminded me a bit of the great, fallen singer-songwriter David Ber- man of the Silver Jews and Purple Mountains. A few months later, I see Raven turning around on his route at South Pointe Pier; I shake his hand and explain our online con- versation. He says he doesn’t run the Insta- gram account; that was someone named Backpacking Beaver. His pace is slow enough that I’m able to walk at the same speed as his jog while he recounts a bit of his story. As Raven recites the precise number of days he’s run and the number of runners he has run alongside, it gets to the point that I wonder if he knows how many grains of sand are on the beach. “You have no idea how good his memory is,” a nearby Raven Runner chimes in. “Tell him the name of any celebrity.” I mention the Bee Gees because I figure Raven will tell me of a time he ran into the Disco Kings, who were longtime residents of Miami Beach. Instead, Raven squawks back, “Barry Gibb was born September 1, 1946. Robin Gibb was born December 22, 1949.” It turns out he could tell you the birthday of just about any- one who found fame in the 20th Century, along with most of Raven’s Runners. I don’t have my notebook with me to write all these details down, so he tells me to come by the Fifth Street lifeguard stand at 5:30 p.m. any day. Much like the tide and the sunrise, I can count on him being there. Joining the Flock On a not-so-hot June Monday, I join Raven and his flock armed with questions. He is stretching among the sunbathers and a bikini- clad model filming a video as he’s telling me the rules: If you finish the entire eight-mile route, you get a nickname. He can recite more than 3,000 of the nicknames he’s bestowed on runners from memory. As we start the journey south, I figure I could ask him a first question: When did you first fall in love with music? “Hold on,” he warns. The interview had gotten in the way of tradition. At the start of every run, in his radio baritone voice, he intro- duces each runner by their nickname. On this weekday, I’m in the presence of Psychological Thriller, Green Thumb, and Lobotomy. Only after the introductions is Raven happy to answer the question. “In the late Fifties, the first song that really hit me was ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett.’ I loved story songs. In 1965, I heard Bob Dylan; his songs really meant some- thing, and he had a different voice.” As a teenager living in 1960s Miami Beach, Raven began penning his own lyrics. “I had a buddy who played drums; I saw how much fun he was having,” he says. “He was the first guy I knew with a girlfriend. We hung out where Nikki Beach is now, and I’d sing along while he played. He said I sounded like Lee Hazelwood.” According to Raven, on November 2, 1966, he dropped out of Miami Beach High School. “For a year, I did nothing but walk around and write songs.” In 1967, he moved to Las Vegas with some friends, partly be- cause he wanted to get to Los Angeles to meet his absentee dad. “I wrote a song about seeing him, ‘I Wish I’d Known You Better.’ That was the last time I saw him. He had two lessons for me: Money goes quick if you’re not working, and if you’re not going to be in school, read as much as you can.” After failing a physical that kept him out of the Vietnam War on June 9, 1969, Raven moved to Nashville on February 23, 1970 — he later points out a giant piece of driftwood washed onto South Beach on September 10, 2017 — to make it as a singer-songwriter. “I’d go to every taping of The Johnny Cash Show. One time, I sat next to his dad. I got to meet Johnny a couple of times, and I handed him my lyric sheets. Johnny said, ‘I’m kind of writing my own songs. Maybe this guy can help you.’” Raven trusted this unnamed music execu- tive with his creativity but was ghosted. “Then a couple months later, I turned on the radio and heard my song.” Raven refuses to say who the shady plagiarist was or which song ripped him off. He’ll only swear that “Johnny Cash had nothing to do with it.” (A 2012 New Times article says it was outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings.) Heartbroken and defeated, Raven During his daily runs, Kraft is often accompanied by a posse of Raven Runners. Photo by Scott McIntyre >> p10 South Beach running legend Robert “Raven” Kraft just wants to sing. BY DAVID ROLLAND CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP
