Richie Lawrence at his piano. Courtesy
Richie Lawrence is a fella from Tulsa who ended up in a Polka band in L.A. before settling in Sacramento.
"Water" is his second full-length solo release for Big Book Records, out tomorrow. You can here a couple of those tunes right now.
He's played and made for as long as he can remember, he said in a recent press statement. He taught himself to play the family’s 1917 Steinway Grand piano and has been a working musician for most of his life.
“The songs use water as a metaphor for consciousness, imagination, love, wonder, playfulness and humor, as well as implying the importance of water both politically and environmentally,” Lawrence said. “Water nurtures the body as love nurtures the soul; both are essential to life.”
For years, he was a regular sideman for I See Hawks in L.A. and a member of Loose Acoustic Trio. This time out, he delivers witty wordplay and warm vocals brimming with heart and down home soul, recorded in Sacramento’s famed The Hangar Studios.
Tulsa-born Lawrence spent his summers as a cowboy on his grandpa’s ranch in Northeastern Oklahoma -- the ranch is now part of the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
“My mom’s father came up from Texas in a covered wagon and my grandmother was from Arkansas,” Lawrence said in a press statement. “My father’s parents were from Ireland and Germany. I’m a real American, a blend of immigrants and Midwesterners.
“My dad played stride-style piano on a 1917 Steinway Grand that my mother’s father gave him. I learned to play it by ear when I was a kid and I still play it today.”
Lawrence’s father loved big band music and Ray Charles. Likewise, Lawrence soaked up Professor Longhair, Otis Spann and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Along the way, Lawrence ended up in Los Angeles, where he wrote songs, did session gigs and played on a Little Richard album. Then he joined a polka band.
In 1982, he met Paul Lacques who was putting together Rotondi, an
avant garde polka band that went about demolishing the boundaries between polka, rock, blues, pop and world music. “This was the beginning of the accordion revival,” Lawrence said.
“Paul asked me if I could get an accordion sound from my synthesizer. I told him I had an accordion. We took it from there. Since I came from a piano, rock and blues background, I wasn’t familiar with polka. I was able to tap into the energy of the music without copying the style.”
His album blend blues piano, live music, crowd laughter, quirky topics and a whole lot of fun.
He’ll be touring to support the album (dates will come soon), showing fans his serious, singer-songwriter side with the help of his band the Yolos.
“I know it’s crazy to start a solo career at 60,” Lawrence admits philosophically, “but these songs are important to me. I want people to hear them.”
The album is available as a physical copy from his official website.It's also available here, directly from iTunes.
And here at CD Baby.
