Rawson
Rawson was founded in the summer of 2001 by frontman and songwriter Sean Haythe. Sean first realized his love of music at a very early age. Raised in a house with an upright piano in the living room, which was a gift his father gave to his mother when they bought their first home in Htfd Conn, right across the street from an elementery school named Rawson. Many nights were spent sitting underneath the piano bench as his mother would jam with the aunt of a neighbor who would come by and exchange music tips with his mom. Sean soon began plucking out his own tunes on the piano.
Brought up in an interacial family, his father a black man and his mother a white woman, he was well aquainted with his dad's love of r&b, soul and blues artist like B.B. King, Al Green, Marvin Gaye and The Styalistics as well as his mom's more theatrical love of music. Show tunes, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis and of course Elvis. Unknown to himself at that moment, Sean was being raised in a soup of different styles of music that would become a reference years later when he would compose songs of his own.
At 13 Sean was introduced to the guitar by child hood friend Ray Jenkins who was starting a band himself. At this time he also started listening to alot of rock influenced music and decided that music was his career of choice. At 17 after many arguments with his father about his career he packed up and jumped on a bus to NYC.
Reality hit quick when he found himself in NY broke and jobless. After moving in with a girlfriend who bought him his first electric guitar and amp, he began composing some of the songs he plays today with Rawson. Being a flexible singer combined with a flare to whip off some pretty impressive dance moves Sean managed to work off and on doing back up with different acts at small clubs and even booked a couple touring gigs that would take him on the road for months at a time. It also gave him his first taste of life on the road. Sex, drugs and rock n roll, he loved every minute. The innocence was gone but he had more subject matter to write about in his music.
Sean finally decided it was time to do his own thing and began hitting the open mic scene in NY to see what kind of response his music would get. Instantly he was asked to come back and do small solo sets. After a year of this he felt sure enough about his music that he would start to put together a band.
Rawson began performing in NYC to raves by the people who came out to catch their live show. Sean has a natural stage prescence and passion that is electrifying. Completing the line up is flamboyant lead guitar player Jimi Sharp who is one of the hottest ax men on the planet, "Mr. Fabulous" Edwin Alvarado holding down the groove on bass and "G" Greg Norwood putting down the G-Smack on drums . You can hear the influences of Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, The Stones, Living Colour, Prince and The Chili Peppers. Funk, rock, blues and soul all mixed together give Rawson a retro vibe that is cutting edge. Rawson is now promoting their brand new self titled cd that can be purchased just about anywhere on line. Expect big things from this band as it is just their first release.
Why do we call ourselves Rawson,,, cause we raw! son!