Moving to Leeds in the late eighties, Ralph Lawson must have had second thoughts about the place with it's gothic buildings and beer n brawling attitude alongside it's dormant club culture. The fact that his favourite bands came from the city may just have tipped the balance, and a generation of clubbers can be thankful of that fact.
Ralph holds the honour of playing the first ever record at Back to Basics, and there is a very good chance that he will play the last if that fateful day ever rears up it's ugly head. Resident dj for 9 glorious years now, the success and vibe of Leeds' best ever club may be just one factor that has prevented Ralph from being mentioned in the same breath as some of the big-money djs of today. That he has not got a single commercial bone in his body is another. Preferring to play one set per night in a club in order to give that club his all, Ralph was never going to get the same national exposure as those other djs. But Ralph is no other dj. Don't ask us, ask Bill Brewster who recently described Lawson as Britain's best kept secret.
As more top US and European djs came to Leeds and witnessed Ralph's smooth-as-a-baby's-bum style, so the requests flooded in from abroad for his deck services. Ralph has played at just about every good club under the sun, and he would probably agree that the highlight of his career was playing to 20,000 people on Bondi Beach on Millenium Eve. He is also surely one of the few foreign djs to have made it in Moscow, a special night that was commemorated by the release of a cd recorded live on the night by Barcelonan label, Minifunk. Not bad for one who has been unnecessarily tarnished with the rather restrictive title of "deep house dj" for some years now.
Never one for resting on his laurels, Ralph has always kept a healthy interest in making music and, as an ex-drummer, was always destined to progress onto studio work. With Carl Finlow, and occasionally Huggy, Ralph has been responsible for a number of highly rated productions.. Most notably, Ralph collaborated with Chez Damier and Stacey Pullen early in his career, which must have had a profound effect on the way he approached production. With Carl, Ralph has recorded as Wolf n Flow and Urban Farmers.
2020 Vision, Ralph's record label, has been going for five years now. To quote Carl Finlow,
" 2020 has grown up and is no longer a baby. It has just started school, and has made some great new friends. Each day it learns more and more and always tries to do it's homework. If it continues as it is doing, it will mature into one of the schools very brightest pupils."
With an ever increasing roster of artists from as far afield as Montreal and Helsinki, Avignon to Manchester, what started out for Ralph as a hobby is fast becoming an international enterprise of some repute.
Not satisfied with making his own music and releasing the music new artists, Ralph has earned himself a significant niche as a remixer. As always with Carl, Ralph has famously remixed artists that include Felix Tha Housekatt, David Bowie, Blaze, Jori Hulkkonen, Shawn Christopher and many more.
Now a regular guest at places like Fabric, Bugged Out and Home, and with his productions and remixes appearing regularly in the playlists of today's top djs, the sky is the limit for this most talented of people. But maybe even that is not beyond Ralph's capabilities.
download Ralph Lawson 2020 visions part 1
download Ralph Lawson 2020 visions part 2
please have a look at SPIRIT CATCHER from 2020 visions recordings
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