Americana Alt.Country CD Reviews

Richie Lawrence
'Rue Sanxay'
(Big Book Records, 2015)

www.richielawrence.com
www.bigbookrecords.com
www.looseacoustictrio.com
www.cdbaby.com/cd/lawrence

Richie Lawrence is a founding member of Rotondi and The Loose Acoustic Trio, accordion and piano sideman to I See Hawks In LA and Ray Bonneville, with four previous releases on Big Book Records: 'Brand New Mind', 'Sorrow Be Gone', 'Melancholy Waltz', 'Water' and now 'Rue Sanxay'.

This ten songs containing new album is rendering a gentle and insistent voice while retaining a fundamental honesty. Eclectic American Music featuring new love, family love, Bayou love, Parisian love, New York love and eternal pining.

Fresh from acclaimed single release Winter Solstice homage, “Over and Over”, from Big Book Records comes 'Rue Sanxay', the third solo recording by piano player, accordionist and singer-songwriter Richie Lawrence.

Richie's BIO:

Richie Lawrence was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Eisenhower was president, and that was just fine with Tulsa. Richie grew up as a townie and a country boy, spending summers cowboying on the family’s grassland homestead. He became best friends with the family’s 1917 Model AIII Steinway Grand Piano, which he plays to this day. Richie got deep into the blues and roots music, self-taught from vinyl, absorbing the styles of Professor Longhair, Otis Spann, Jerry Lee Lewis and Garth Hudson.

Upon surviving high school, young Lawrence wound up in 1970’s Colorado, when bands were paid to play, rock musicians ruled the earth, and you could still drink from mountain streams. Freedom reigned. Acquiring a BFA in art history at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Richie also took his knocks in the College of Musical Knowledge, in local groups, such as the Ray Bonneville Blues Band, opening for and absorbing Willie Dixon, Mance Lipscomb, John Hammond, and The Ramones.

1980 brought the big move to Los Angeles. Richie’s first recorded song and session playing was released in ’81 with The Tim Goodman Band, on Columbia Records. The LP, produced by John McFee, featured every member of the Doobie Brothers and the incomparable Nicky Hopkins. Fame and fortune didn’t quite happen, but Richie got to open for and hang with Bonnie Raitt, Steve Goodman, Crystal Gayle, America and George Thorogood.

In 1983 Richie met guitarist / songwriter Paul Lacques and the two would work together for the next seven years in that uniquely creative and crazy theatrical Polka extravaganza called Rotondi. Richie would finally learn to play his uncle’s accordion liberated from Germany in WWII. The Rotondi exploit garnered, for both Richie and Paul, Los Angeles DramaLogue Awards for Best Music, and thousands of fans across the country. The band would release four CDs and appear on every major television network of the day: ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as Fox, HBO, and NPR’s Weekend Edition. Three U.S. tours and many festivals led to meeting, jamming, or hanging with The Neville Brothers, David Lindley, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Doug Sahm, Little Richard, David Byrne, Timothy Leary, Brave Combo and polka kings Jimmy Sturr and Eddie Blazonczyk.

Love and work brought Mr. Lawrence to Sacramento, CA in 1994. He married the beautiful Katie Thomas and joined the traditional cowboy folk music experience called Horse Sense, with Justin Bishop. On the rosters of The USIA, The Western States Arts Federation, and The Los Angeles Learning Tree, musical tours were made to El Salvador, Indonesia, Germany, Poland, many of the United States and more schools than one can count. Collaborating with the likes of cowboy poets Paul Zarzyski and Wally McRae, and playing The Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, were beyond inspirational.

2004 brought The Loose Acoustic Trio and partnering with fellow writer and bedpandolin player Ken Cooper and bassist Steve O’Neill. The LAT’s debut CD, 'Brand New Mind' (2005), inspired the inaugural release and creation of Big Book Records. With no reviews and no help, The Trio’s first CD was able to reach #27 on the Freeform American Roots (FAR) chart and wander into a few TV productions. The Trio honed their sound at Farmers Markets and entered the big time with The California State Fair.

Big Book Records scored a memorable twin release, on May 20, 2008, with the second record by The Loose Acoustic Trio, 'Sorrow Be Gone', and the fourth CD by Southern California country rockers, the indomitable I See Hawks In LA, founded by Paul Lacques and Rob Waller. Things come full circle as Richie Lawrence and Paul Lacques once again combine artistic forces.

In 2010 Richie Lawrence launched his solo career with 'Melancholy Waltz' and followed with 'Water' in 2012.

In between solo projects, 'Melancholy Waltz' and 'Water', Lawrence made time for some outside work, recording tracks on two I See Hawks In LA CDs, 'New Kind Of Lonely' (2012) and 'Mystery Drug' (2014) as well as Ray Bonneville’s latest, 'Easy Gone' (2014), and is heavily featured on the upcoming Earthworm Ensemble CD. Richie is currently touring with Ray and I See Hawks In LA, and will be touring to support his own new album, 'Rue Sanxay', showing fans his serious, musician / singer / songwriter side, with the help of his fellow Yolos. Lawrence states, “These songs are important to me. I want people to hear them.”