Richie Lawrence & Katie Thomas

The Eclectic Music Wonderland of RICHIE LAWRENCE

Richie’s musical backdrop creates the foundation for the varied genres that weave through his songs — styles absorbed, refashioned and born anew.  Attending the opera with his grandparents at hometown Tulsa municipal theater; listening to country music permeating the Oklahoma airwaves; digging big band swing and Ray Charles with his father Richard Sr., also a pianist; older sister Jerry Lee and Elvis immersion; attending 1965 concerts featuring James Brown and The Rolling Stones; hanging with Chicago musicians and being initiated into the living blues, while first meeting and playing with Ray Bonneville in the ‘70s; moving to Los Angeles in 1980, meeting Paul Lacques, of I See Hawks In L.A. fame, and together forging a new wave polka music in Rotondi, as well as continued touring and recording with The Hawks on nine of their last ten recordings; Touring the world with cowboy…