Ray Bonneville and Richie Lawrence

Ray Bonneville recorded his first album, On the Main, in 1992. He’s since released nine albums, earned wide critical and popular acclaim, and won an enthusiastic following in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. His awards include a prestigious Juno, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, for his 1999 album, Gust of Wind. In 2012, Ray won the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. His post-Katrina ode, “I Am the Big Easy,” earned the International Folk Alliance’s 2009 Song of the Year Award, placed number one on Folk Radio’s list of most-played songs of 2008, and was recently covered by Jennifer Warnes for the BMG label.

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 still 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. Richie’s grasp of piano was forged on stage in local blues bands opening for and absorbing Willie Dixon, Mance Lipscomb, John Hammond, and The Ramones.