Ronnie Laws is the fifth of eight children born in Houston, Texas, into a family that would go on to produce four working professional musicians: himself, flutist Hubert Laws, and vocalists Eloise and Debra Laws. He picked up the alto saxophone at 11, spent two years at Stephen F. Austin State University, and left for Los Angeles in 1971 to chase a music career, first paying dues behind trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

In 1972, Earth, Wind & Fire brought him in as the band's first saxophonist, and he played tenor and soprano sax and flute on their album "Last Days and Time." He stayed 18 months, long enough to be part of the band's formative years before it became one of the biggest acts in Black American music, then left to build a solo career.

In Los Angeles he met Donald Byrd, who got him signed to Blue Note. His 1975 debut, "Pressure Sensitive," was produced by George Butler and Wayne Henderson of the Crusaders, reached No. 25 on Billboard's Top Soul Albums chart, and introduced "Always There," a jazz-funk instrumental that has since been covered or sampled by more than 100 other artists. The follow-up, "Fever" (1976), climbed to No. 13 on the same chart. "Friends & Strangers" (1977) went Gold. "Every Generation" (1980) became his commercial peak at No. 4, and its single "Stay Awake" crossed over onto the Billboard Hot 100 outright at No. 60.

Through the same period, Laws moved into production, working on albums for his siblings Hubert, Eloise, and Debra. He kept recording steadily through the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s across labels including Capitol, Columbia, and Blue Note, guested on Guru's "Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4" in 2007, and has continued releasing new music into the 2020s, including a 2025 album, "Natural High," and a 2026 single pairing "Always There" with "For The Love of Money." More than five decades after he first picked up a horn in Los Angeles, he remains an active recording and touring artist.

Laws's sound sits at the commercial, radio-friendly end of 1970s jazz: tenor sax lines built for melody and hook rather than extended improvisation, laid over electric keys, clavinet, and funk/soul rhythm sections. "Always There" is the clearest statement of that approach, a horn-led instrumental confident enough to carry a song without a vocal. His time inside Earth, Wind & Fire's rhythm section left an audible mark on his own solo records' groove and arrangement sensibility, and his family's vocal-group background (three siblings who built careers as singers) shows up in his frequent use of backing vocals and R&B-styled songwriting across his catalog. He has cited saxophonists including Boney James and guitarist Norman Brown as artists who name him as a direct influence on their own contemporary jazz sound.