Blues Singer and Harp man, "Roadside" Louie, plays a traditional kind of blues that meets in the crossroads of the Delta, in the juke joints of Chicago's South Side, and in the West Coast jump blues dance halls of California. He has performed throughout the East Coast, Argentina, the Caribbean, Europe, Canada, and California.
Playing original songs, Roadside Louie also performs covers of songs by Little Walter, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and many others.
Roadside Louie first became aware of real blues when older neighborhood friends started listening to Chicago Blues during the blues revival of the 60s and early 70s.
At around age of 14 he tried to emulate his friends who, thanks to Paul Butterfield and James Cotton, were all running around with harmonicas in their hip pocket.
At the age of 16, he and guitarist and friend, Bobby Pauling, hitchhiked the country (thus the name Roadside) & played on street corners for tips and pocket change in cities along the way.
After returning home for a brief spell, he was back on the road, soon coming together with another musician, as they journeyed towards California, and later to Arizona and Virginia, Roadside wound up in Houston, Texas.



Those days introduced him to many musicians that used to hang out at the bars and play in the streets of the Third Ward of Houston. Some of these musicians being the same musicians he had heard on college radio stations years earlier.
Roadside returned home to New Jersey at age 25 and started playing with old friends and Within a few years formed his first professional group which began evolving and bouncing around the East coast. Building in popularity, they became the house band at the Stanhope House, playing with the likes of James Cotton and other Chicago luminaries.



`Roadside Louie

"The main thing for me in lyrics is to create blues imagery."

 

Stanhope House records featured the band backing up legendary blues guitarist Homesick James live in 1994.
Another club where the group became a regular is the Great Notch Inn. in Little Falls. A Silk City Recording, "Standing Room Only", captured songs by Roadside Louie and the Dusters including Roadside's own, "Sheriff's Daughter." One of those songs, "I've Been Abused", rewarded him with a number one spot on the Australian charts.
"All my own songs are based in personal experiences," says Roadside. "The first songs I wrote, I don't have anymore. I lost them in a fire in Texas. "Sheriff's Daughter" is one of the earliest songs I wrote that I still play.
"The main thing for me in lyrics is to create blues imagery. For me one of the best examples is Robert Johnson. When he sings, you can see what he's singing about. I like to have that quality in my songs"

Edited from  an interview between Roadside Louie & Robert Hicks as appeared in the Daily Record.




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