Livia Records
Livia Records is back. Originally set up in 1977 by the late Gerald Davis to record Jazz guitar legend Louis Stewart and his contemporaries, the label released several successful albums.
The first release was the brilliant solo Louis Stewart album “Out On His Own” in 1977, followed by others with leading musicians of the time like John Wadham, Brian Dunning, Jim Doherty, and Martin Taylor.
Livia was dormant, and its master tapes were in storage when Gerald Davis died in 2005. In 2021, a reactivation process began when Dermot Rogers contacted the Davis family to catalogue the label’s archives with a view to possible re-releases.
The masters of the previous releases survived well, leading to further digitization, mastering, and packaging. Other valuable recordings were also identified.
Livia Records is pleased to be back and planning both previously released and unreleased recordings.
Our first release is a remastered and extended version of Louis Stewart’s “Out On His Own”.
Others followed:
SOME OTHER BLUES, THE DUBLIN CONCERT, ACOUSTIC GUITAR DUETS, LOUIS THE FIRST, I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU, and JOYCE NOTES (in late March’26).
In 2025 we also started releasing contemporary artists, like Michael Buckley, Ronan Guilfoyle and Carole Nelson.
Who’s who
The Davis Family
Dermot Rogers now owns and manages Livia Records, while maintaining a close relationship with the late Gerald Davis’s family (his son Les and daughters Deb and Judy).
Deb and Judy unearthed the Livia archives in 2001, enabling Dermot to catalog and digitize the numerous tapes, and begin the fund raising and release process.
Their support was key to both the protection of the catalog and work to make Livia Records titles, and the work of the musicians involved, available to music audiences again.
Gerald Davis
Gerald Davis was a painter, Joycean scholar, and enthusiastic patron of music, theatre, and literature. He enabled and produced Louis Stewarts’ first solo recording (“Louis the First”), established Livia Records to record more, and produced and recorded a large number of live recordings. He oversaw the production, release, and distribution of all Livia Recordings and a later partner release program with Jardis Records in Germany (active until the mid-1990s). Gerald was a close friend of Louis Stewart, in addition to collaborating with him on live music and painting projects (“A Brush with Jazz”) on several occasions.
Dermot Rogers
Dermot is an ardent music fan, collector, and broadcaster with extensive IT and digital media expertise. He conceived the idea of finding, rescuing, and reissuing the Livia recordings. He has been the lead player in the project to date, progressing cataloging, developing plans for digitization and reissue, and networking extensively within the music, press, and technical communities to build support and awareness for the project.
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