empowering artistsearwig storeour mission
quote1-upper
The box set Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection brings to light...
Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records - Downbeat 2019 Holiday Gift Guide
Downbeat Magazine
Read more herequote2-lower
quote1-upper
Anyone who's looking to advance their career would be very well served to have Michael...
Sari Schorr
New York songwriter/bandleader/singer
Read more herequote2-lower
quote1-upper
Michael is a 21st century renaissance man who has both the business acumen and the...
Don Wilcock
Freelance Music Writer
Read more herequote2-lower

Louis Myers

September 18, 1929 – September 5, 1994

Guitarist/harpist Louis Myers is featured in Earwig’s CD 4919, Tell My Story Movin’;  he plays lead guitar on Big Leon Brooks’ Earwig CD 4931, Let’s Go To Town.

Though he was certainly capable of brilliantly fronting a band, remarkably versatile guitarist/harpist Louis Myers will forever be recognized first and foremost as a top-drawer sideman and founding member of the Aces — the band that backed harmonica wizard Little Walter Jacobs on his immortal early Checker waxings.

Along with his older brother David — another charter member of the Aces — Louis left Mississippi for Chicago with his family in 1941. Fate saw the family move next door to blues great Lonnie Johnson, whose complex riffs caught young Louis’s ear. Another Myers brother, harp-blowing Bob, hooked Louis up with guitarist Othum Brown for house party gigs. Myers also played with guitarist Arthur “Big Boy” Spires before teaming with his brother David on guitar and young harpist Junior Wells to form the first incarnation of the Aces (who were initially known as the Three Deuces). In 1950, drummer Fred Below came on board.

In effect, the Aces and Muddy Waters traded harmonica players in 1952, Wells leaving to play with Waters while Little Walter, just breaking nationally with his classic “Juke,” moved into the front man role with the Aces. Myers and the Aces backed Walter on his seminal “Mean Old World,” “Sad Hours,” “Off the Wall,” and “Tell Me Mama” and at New York’s famous Apollo Theater before Louis left in 1954 (he and the Aces moonlighted on Wells’s indispensable 1953-54 output for States).

Plenty of sideman work awaited Myers — he played with Otis Rush, Earl Hooker, and many more. But his own recording career was practically non-existent; after a solitary 1956 single for Abco, “Just Whaling”/”Bluesy,” that found Myers blowing harp in Walter-like style, it wasn’t until 1968 that two Myers tracks turned up on Delmark.

The Aces reformed during the 1970s and visited Europe often as a trusty rhythm section for touring acts. Myers cut a fine set for Advent in 1978, I’m a Southern Man, that showed just how effective he could be as a leader (in front of an L.A. band, no less). Myers was hampered by the effects of a stroke while recording his last album for Earwig, 1991’s Tell My Story Movin’. He courageously completed the disc but was limited to playing harp and singing. His health soon took a turn for the worse, ending his distinguished musical career.

– Written by Bill Dahl, updated by Michael Frank

“His harmonica, vocal, and guitar chops richly demonstrate why he is credited with a large role in helping develop shuffle and other uptempo blues.”

–Silo Independent Newsletter

louis myers
Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals
Albums
0