About this user
Armed with a guitar, footstomp and vocal cords "Little" Louis van Empel delivers a surprising and energetic performance. His songwriting combines raw deltablues and dark americana with various folky sounds. His main influences are the old bluesmasters like Blind Willie Johnson, Son House and John Lee Hooker, but also artists like Beck, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits. With full dedication, he delivers his own unique version of "the blues". Louis mainly performs as a solo or duo act, but also with The Little Louis Band, consisting of: Aart van der Wulp (harmonica), Geurt Engelsman (upright bass) en Gabriël Peeters (drums).
In 1994 Louis founded the first Little Louis Bluesband. This band acquired a large regional reputation, which eventually yielded them a performance at the prestigious Belgium Rhythm & blues festival (BRBF) in Peer in 2000.
As from 1999, writing songs with influences from folk, americana, country, latin, blues, jazz and rock occupied Louis and it was no longer possible to incorporate all of his ideas into the bluesband's repertoire. After recording the first independent cd "Compass & Chart", he founded the band "Louis!" at the end of 2000. In 2001 a second independent CD was released, titled "Tales of Liquid Desires & Shining Armours". This album was praised by various dutch music magazines and other reviewers. During the summer of 2003 the third Louis! album was recorded, and became the official debut album on Corazong Records. The cd, titled "A Close Watch", was praised by the (inter)national (music)press and received quite a bit of airplay on national and regional radio.
Apart from the release of the new cd the establishment of the songwriters-collective, Songwriters United, with BJ Baartmans, Eric van Dijsseldonk and Eric Devries was an important activity in 2004. As a result a live-DVD was released in june 2005 of Songwriters United on Inbetweens records.
In january 2007, the "blues-noir" album "Speak or the Devil" will be released on Inbetweens records.
