Our History
Ragamuffin Archive was founded by Joe Cook after he unexpectedly received three boxes of rare and unreleased Rich Mullins recordings from a fellow fan that he had connected with online. Astounded to learn that all of that incredible material existed, and blown away by what he saw and heard on those recordings, Joe brainstormed ways that he might be able to share it all with the rest of the world. In January of 2010, he decided to launch a YouTube channel and within weeks, viewers began sending their own rare recordings. For almost 15 years now, Ragamuffin Archive has spearheaded a grassroots effort to preserve and share lost and unreleased material by Rich Mullins, A Ragamuffin Band and other adjacent artists. With millions of views and nearly 20k subscribers, Ragamuffin Archive has become the world’s largest online archive of Ragamuffin recordings.
Our Team
Joe Cook is a former radio producer who worked for stations in New Jersey, New Mexico and Arizona. From 2015 to 2018, he served as the Manager of the Western Indian Radio Network (now Across Nations Radio Network) in Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the Navajo Nation. He founded Ragamuffin Archive in 2010, and has since been heavily involved in the Rich Mullins/Ragamuffin community, hosting multiple podcasts related to the subject and organizing concerts on the Navajo Reservation. In 2017, he was asked to photograph the cover of Andrew Osenga's album The Painted Desert and, in 2022, he served as a co-producer on the live Rich Mullins album Deep Valley, handling the editing and sequencing of that record. He is a former member of UTR Media's Critic's Panel, having been a contributor to their articles and podcasts.
Joe Cook, Ragamuffin Archive Founder
Chris Marchand is a writer, podcaster, musician, teacher, and pastor. He lives in Peoria, Illinois, is married to Elisa and has four kids. A long time podcast producer, he started out with PostConsumer Reports, where a number of his interviews were related to Rich Mullins' life and work. This included interviewing Joe Cook about Ragamuffin Archive but also Reed Arvin about A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band for Christianity Today. He and Joe eventually went on to produce the Between the Songs podcast, as well as helping co-produce the live Rich Mullins album Deep Valley. Along with producing other podcasts (Nostalgic Future, Tent Talks, Wall of Silence), over the years Chris has also released albums of his own music, and authored the book Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas: a guide for churches and families. He teaches literature and history and is always looking to enjoy a new book or film.
Chris Marchand, Podcasting/Content Creation
Hal Swift, Imaging/Content Creation
Nate Eichelman, Public Relations/Media Relations
Joey Cook, Social Media Director
Our Contributors
As we mentioned above, Ragamuffin Archive has always been a grassroots effort and we’ve been honored to work with tons of great people over the years, folks from all over the world who have contributed some truly incredible recordings to our channel. Below we would like to thank some of those who have helped make Ragamuffin Archive what it is today.
Firstly, let us offer our thanks to our dear friend Andrew Montonera, who has worked tirelessly over the years to track down some of the most popular recordings featured on our channel. On top of his archival work, in late 2020, Andrew completed a feature-length documentary called The Work You Began: The Last Days of Rich Mullins, and we were truly honored that he chose to release it on Ragamuffin Archive. For more info about Andrew Montonera, including his work as an author, check out his website at https://www.andrewmontonera.com/
The following is a list of just some of the other contributors with whom we’d like offer our sincerest thanks:
John T. Adkins, Larry Handley, Jean Cavfrier, Rick Elias, Mitch McVicker, Eric Hauck, Mark Robertson, Eric Townsend, Chris Hauser, Timothy P. Burns, Rick Whitmer, Robin Woodson, Dena McClure, Elizabeth Snell Lutz, Rick Starr, Darlene Beldin, Trey Stumpff, Rick Calhoun, Scott Hanson, Jim Rinck, Matt Switzer, Joe Hill, Becky Speirs, T.J. Tomazin, Caleb Nichols, Amy Vreeman, Tom Blair-Fish, Kevin Denham, Chuck Harper, Hal Swift, Reid Thornton, Jim McCain Jr, Peter Kruse, Brian Mason, YouTuber @sbigglesby and Christina Marie.
If we missed your name, please let us know. If you have a rare Rich Mullins/Ragamuffin recording that you would like to contribute to Ragamuffin Archive, please send us an email at ragamuffinarchive@gmail.com.