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 owns and 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. While acquiring a BFA in Art History at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Richie took his knocks in the College of Musical Knowledge, in local blues bands opening for and absorbing Willie Dixon, Mance Lipscomb, John Hammond, and The Ramones. In 1980 Richie ventured west to Los Angeles. Working with The Tim Goodman Band (Columbia Records), Richie was also an integral part of the whimsical and theatrical musical Polka extravaganza ROTONDI, with founder Paul Lacques (I See Hawks In L.A.). 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. 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. The solo debut, Melancholy Waltz, is a turn inward for Richie, deep into his own songwriting and personal world view, and a full embrace of his timeless and deep grasp of American piano. The playing will carry listeners deep into the honky tonks, whorehouses, and churches of Tulsa, New Orleans, and all points east and south.