What is Raw Productions?

Raw Productions was the name of a recording studio I established in 1983 in Bellevue Washington, USA. The original intent was to record myself and other musicians for profit. I quickly realized that the service industry was not for me and decided to devote my talents to writing, playing and producing my own music and to offering my services free to friends, musicians and songwriters.

So what is RawPro?

In 1987 I moved myself, my wife and my studio to Phoenix Arizona. As many of us do, I wanted to reflect my interests and personality on my truck's license plate. Thus the invention RAWPRO. I moved back to Snohomish Washington in 1997, building my new studio and this website, rawpro.com. So you might say RawPro is a stage name, both in this world and in the internet world. Since I often work with other musicians, RawPro has become more, and hopefully, larger than myself and at a RawPro concert "you never know what to expect". or who might show up. All I can say for sure is that I will be there.

So who am I?

I was born Alan Robert Wright on November 4th, 1957, in Manchester England, but only the people I don't know call me Alan. To everyone else I'm Bob. This was the name that was given to me at birth regardless of what the birth certificate says. Maybe this explains the identity crisis. My family brought me to Washington state on July 3rd 1967 the eve of Independence Day.  Revenge?

I've been writing songs and music since as long as I can remember. I think my first song was called 'King Kong's a Banana' which I recorded on a small reel to reel tape recorder, before cassette tapes had been invented. I must have been about seven. I also spent time on my grandmothers piano, making up songs.

At twelve I learned to play the trumpet in a junior high school and later high school band, but my love has always been the guitar. No one in my family was very musical and I was brought up to follow in my father's footsteps as an engineer. My parents eventually bought an old piano on which I taught myself to play and which I still own . Engineering school was easy for me, I was luckily brilliant in mathematics. An engineer can also make a good living and I think it may have been this fact that held me back from being a professional musician. I call myself 'semi-professional', since although I am often paid, it is generally not enough to live on.

Over the past 35 years I have recorded and performed all over the world and I have written hundreds of songs. Like anyone else I write about what I'm thinking and feeling about at the time. Being cursed with deep thought creates deep lyrics, although I try hard to lighten up as often as I can. I also write what I call philosophy-poetry, mostly on my developed philosophy of Harmonism, not to be confused with Robert Owen, who although I have great respect for him, was a man of his time. Over the last 25 years I have been studying the course of human history from conception through the founding of civilization to the present time. Mostly British and European and later American history but also, eastern civilizations, religions and philosophies, Persian, Indian, Chinese etc. This study has also enlightened my songs through folk stories and ancient beliefs.

Though my writing may come from my head, my playing comes from the heart and I play better than I talk or probably do anything else. I play everyday and for me it is like breathing. Breathing in the atmosphere of the venue and releasing it with music. Each song may have a basis of structure, but it is performed with a very improvisational style.

This Web Site

This personal website is a venue for my music and writings, past and present. A place for bootlegs, out-takes and archived albums. I hope to eventually include recordings of all my songs and renditions of other popular songs. I mostly play all the instruments but I do love to collaborate with other players and writers both as a musician and as a producer.

I consider the lyrics to my songs as poems. Almost all my poems become songs, and my songs poems. Thelyrics to the songs are collected in the in the Poetry tab, but I also include a link with the music link.