Lawson Rollins

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The basics

Quick facts

Intro

American musician

Gender:

Male

Places:

United States of America

Is:

Guitarist Jazz musician Musician Jazz guitarist

Work field:

Music

Birth:

(North Carolina)

The details

Biography

Introduction

Lawson Rollins is an award-winning American guitarist and composer from North Carolina noted for his virtuoso fingerstyle technique and melodic compositional skills featured in his recordings. His music spans is generally classed as Latin jazz and world music, with elements of samba, bossa nova, Middle Eastern music, classical guitar, flamenco, and shred guitar. He often employs fast minor scales and diminished scale solo runs to his compositions which are executed in the flamenco picado style.

Music career

He is best known for his compositions The Fire Cadenza, Santa Ana Wind, Flight, Daybreak, Infinita, and Moonlight Samba and his albums Infinite Chill (the remix sessions), Traveler, Infinita, Espirito, Elevation and Full Circle which were all critically acclaimed by the jazz and guitar communities. He has reached a wide audience on both radio and the internet. Video performances of Locomotion, The Fire Cadenza and Santa Ana Wind have been viewed millions of times on YouTube. His songs "Flight", "Daybreak", "Moonlight Samba," and "Infinita" have proven popular on jazz radio stations and landed on the Billboard Top 30 contemporary jazz radio chart. His album Full Circle landed on the Billboard Top 10 World Music album sales chart and he was a Top 100 Artist of the Year on radio as ranked by RadioWave. The song "Shifting Seasons" from Full Circle won the U.S. Songwriting Competition first place award for instrumental song of the year. Lawson was also awarded third place for Artist of the Year. In a separate year he received another first place award in the USA Songwriting Competition for the title track of his Traveler album. The Traveler album also won three Gold Medals in the Global Music Awards for Instrumentalist, Album, and Top 10 Albums of the Year.

Influenced by Andrés Segovia from his mid-teens, he developed an interest in jazz, flamenco, and improvisational Latin and Brazilian guitar styles in his early twenties. After graduating from Duke University he earned a graduate degree from the London School of Economics, then moved to Washington, D.C. in 1998 where he met guitarist Daniel Young (Dan Young) at a local flamenco shop and formed the Latin guitar fusion group Young & Rollins. They released several albums together, including Salsa Flamenca, which landed on the Billboard Chart in 2000, Sevilla (2001), Esperanza (2005) and Mosaic (2006) and played at venues such as the Kennedy Center and Sydney Opera House. Rollins was based in Washington until 2007 when he moved to San Francisco.

His solo albums are characterized by an eclectic mix of Middle Eastern, Brazilian, and Arabic music fused with Spanish guitar and backed by an all-star cast of musicians from around the world including Brazilian singer Flora Purim, percussionist Airto Moreira, Cuban drummer Horacio Hernandez, Shahin Shahida of Shahin and Sepehr, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, Grammy-winning violinists Mads Tolling and Charlie Bisharat, and electric guitarist Buckethead, among others.

Lawson is a voting member of NARAS, a member of A2IM, and owner of the independent world music record label Infinita Records.

Discography

Albums

Solo

Infinita (Infinita, 2008)
Espirito (Infinita, 2010)
Elevation (Infinita, 2011)
Full Circle (Infinita, 2013)
Infinite Chill: The Remix Sessions (Infinita, 2015)
Traveler (Infinita, 2015)
3 Minutes to Midnight (Infinita, 2017)

As part of Young & Rollins

Salsa Flamenca (2000)
Sevilla (2001)
Esperanza (2005)
Mosaic (2006)

Compilation appearances