Friends and family of the late Louis Meyers will be assembling today in Austin, TX to commemorate the life of the celebrated musician, promoter, and organizer who died suddenly from a heart attack last Friday morning.
Meyers was prominent in the worlds of bluegrass and acoustic roots music for most of his 61 years. Born and raised in Austin, he was a tireless promoter of American folk music, most particularly that of his native Texas. He is remembered as a co-founder of the gigantic SxSW festival, a former Executive Director of Folk Alliance, and the driving force behind the recent reworking of Tommy – A Bluegrass Opry, the reimagined rendering of The Who’s Tommy in bluegrass by The Hillbenders.
Louis was also an active member of the International Bluegrass Music Association who was aggressively but unsuccessfully lobbied to take the position of Executive Director of the IBMA when it was recently available.
His niece, Laura Callahan, shared this brief tribute with us over the weekend.
“Louis was born, raised, and took his final breath in Austin, Texas – and he dedicated his life to sharing music – not just as a musician, but as an agent, manager, booker, producer, entrepreneur, and champion of music from Austin and around the entire globe. He was a tenacious idealist, and his life’s goal created a legacy of countless careers – and individual experiences – in music.”
This afternoon’s remembrance follows his graveside memorial service this morning at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery. Family and friends are gathering from noon to 5:00 p.m. (CDT) at Strange Brew Lounge Side in South Austin. A live Internet broadcast of this event will be broadcast online by gigity.tv.
There will be music and personal remembrances shared by a good many people who were close to Louis.
The entire presentation is available online.
