Louis Stewart

Guitar

Known simply as Louis, and revered by a loyal fanbase in Ireland, his fame was always greater abroad. From his award winning 1968 Montreux festival debut, he was soon playing with major names. Over the course of a long career, Louis Stewart would appear on over seventy albums, and tour the world in the company of some of the foundational stars of the music he loved, including Benny Goodman, JJ Johnson, George Shearing, Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes etc. Though mainly London-based in the late 60s and 1970s, he was a regular visitor back to Dublin to play sell out shows. Gerald Davis established Livia Records in 1977 specifically to record him on home soil. It was only towards the end of his life, that he gained honours at home as Ireland began to realise that he was one of the great geniuses of modern music, an Irish artist to stand alongside Heaney, Beckett, and Le Brocquy as one who transcended his art form and he was awarded with an Honorary Doctorate by Trinity College Dublin (1998) and Aosdána membership (2009) (Arts Council body to acknowledge outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland). Louis died in 2016. Sunday Times critic Derek Jewell: “… a musician to be spoken of in the same league as Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, or, among contemporary virtuosos, Joe Pass.” Ronnie Scott: “In my book he's one of the world's great jazz guitarists” DownBeat Magazine: “must be considered one of the instrument’s world class players” Louis inspired generations of guitarists, in Ireland and around the world, and enjoyed the regard of many of the great musicians who he had so carefully studied, including Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Jim Hall and Pat Martino. Louis died in 2016.