Louis X. Erlanger (born June 3, 1952,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) is an American

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

best known for his work with the band

Mink DeVille Mink DeVille was a rock band founded in 1974, known for its association with early punk rock bands at New York's CBGB nightclub and for being a showcase for the music of Willy DeVille. The band recorded six albums in the years 1977 to 1985, after ...

. Erlanger recorded three albums with the band: ''

Cabretta ''Cabretta'', known as ''Mink DeVille'' in the United States, was the 1977 debut album by Mink DeVille. It peaked at number 186 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart and was voted the 29th best album of 1977 in the ''Village Voices Pazz & Jop critics' po ...

'' (1977), ''

Return to Magenta ''Return to Magenta'', issued in 1978, is the second album by the Rock music, rock band Mink DeVille. The album was the last to feature all the original members of the band. For this album the band was joined by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member St ...

'' (1978), and ''

Le Chat Bleu ''Le Chat Bleu'' is the third album by the rock band Mink DeVille, released in 1980. The album received critical acclaim and elevated lead singer and composer Willy DeVille to star status. The ''Rolling Stone'' critics' poll ranked ''Le Chat Bleu ...

'' (1980). He also appeared on ''Live at CBGB's'' (1976), an album of bands that pioneered punk rock at the venerable nightclub

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

in the mid-1970s. Erlanger's first instrument was the piano, but he switched to guitar after hearing recordings by

Jimmy Reed Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with blues as well as non-blues audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), " ...

. In the summer of 1968, at the age of sixteen, he got a chance to back up

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

at the

Cafe Au Go Go The Cafe Au Go Go was a Greenwich Village night club located in the basement of the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre building in the late 1960s, and located at 152 Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York City. The club featured many musical groups, ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

(Hooker shared the bill with a young

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in t ...

and the group

Rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

). ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'' critic Annie Fisher described Hooker's performance as "awesome"; it was a turning point for Erlanger, who decided to become a professional musician. He formed a group called the Sting Rays, which had some success with an EP produced by

Phil Schaap Philip van Noorden Schaap (April 8, 1951September 7, 2021) was an American radio host, who specialized in jazz as a broadcaster, historian, archivist, and producer. He began presenting jazz shows on Columbia University's WKCR in 1970, and hoste ...

early in his career. After leaving Mink DeVille, Erlanger returned to his first love, the blues, and worked with the likes of

R. L. Burnside R. L. Burnside (November 23, 1926 – September 1, 2005) was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played music for much of his life but received little recognition before the early 1990s. In the latter half of that decade, Bur ...

Otis Rush Otis Rush Jr. (April 29, 1934 – September 29, 2018) was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. His distinctive guitar style featured a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With qualities similar to the styles of other 1950s art ...

Pinetop Perkins Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Life ...

Hubert Sumlin Hubert Charles Sumlin (November 16, 1931 – December 4, 2011) was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer, best known for his "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic suspensions" as a member of Howlin ...

Big Jay McNeeley Cecil James "Big Jay" McNeely (April 29, 1927 – September 16, 2018) was an American rhythm and blues saxophonist. Biography Inspired by Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young, McNeely teamed with his older brother Robert McNeely, who played barit ...

, and others. His Seattle-based group The Slamhound Hunters had a regional hit on the West Coast and toured Europe. Erlanger produced two R.L. Burnside albums: ''Acoustic Stories'' (1997) and ''Well, Well, Well...'' (2001). ''Acoustic Stories'' was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award in 1998. Erlanger co-produced ''Down In The Delta'' with

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

Blues Band alumnus

Paul Oscher Paul Allan Oscher (February 26, 1947 – April 18, 2021) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Primarily a harmonica player, he was the first permanent white member of Muddy Waters' band.Norman Darwen, "Obituary: Paul ...

, for which Oscher won an Acoustic Artist of the Year award and an Acoustic Album of the Year award at the 2006

Blues Music Award The Blues Music Awards, formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards (or "The Handys"), are awards presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster blues heritage. The awards were originally named in honor of W. C. Handy, " ...

s. Erlanger also produced recordings by

Ruth Brown Ruth Alston Brown (; January 12, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American singer-songwriter and actress, sometimes referred to as the " Queen of R&B". She was noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atl ...

bandleader and jazz organist Bobby Forrester, jazz guitarist William Ash, and Canadian Juno award winning singer Danny Brooks. Erlanger appears on the Robert Palmer-produced

Fat Possum Records Fat Possum Records is an American independent record label based in Water Valley and Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording previously unknown Mississippi blues artists (typically from Oxford or Holly Sprin ...

album by

CeDell Davis Ellis CeDell Davis (June 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American blues guitarist and singer. He was most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis played guitar using a butter knife in his fretting hand in a manner simi ...

entitled ''Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong'' (1994). Two Erlanger songs appear on the soundtrack of the 1985 movie ''The Revenge of the Teenage Vixens from Outer Space''. Soundtrac
The Revenge of the Teenage Vixens from Outer Space.

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

. Erlanger currently performs as Sunny Lowdown and has released three recordings under that name: ''The Blues Volume Low'', ''Down Loaded'', which was nominated for a 2018 Blues Blast Music Award as Acoustic Blues CD of The Year, and ''Shady Deal''.

References

External links

The official website of Louis X. ErlangerThe official website of Sunny Lowdown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Erlanger, Louis X. 1952 births Living people American rock guitarists American male guitarists Blues rock musicians Mink DeVille members Guitarists from New York City 20th-century American guitarists