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Louis was born in Glasgow in 1956 into a musical family. His parents, Norah and Louis McManus (Louis Senior) were of Catholic Irish stock. Louis' grandfather Owen was born in Tyrone but had settled in Glasgow. The family emigrated to Australia in 1962 and settled in Werribee, near Melbourne.

(Note: the name Louis is pronounced in the usual European fashion, with a silent "s".).

Louis Senior, a fiddle player, gave his son a mandolin when he was five. By the time the boy was eight, Louis Senior has said, "There was nothing more I could teach him.".

Technically, perhaps not, but the family environment must have provided fertile ground for the young prodigy's further musical growth. In addition there was the small but tight-knit Irish-music community in the Melbourne area and farther afield. By the time Louis was fifteen, he had mastered the guitar and tenor banjo to such a degree that it is safe to say there was virtually nothing that anybody could have taught him about playing traditional music on them.

Too much talent?
Louis had the same effect on anyone that heard him play - amazement verging on disbelief. But despite his enormous talent, he remained a very modest and unambitious man.

I myself, dreaming (unrealistically) of making a living as a musician at the time I knew him, couldn't understand why he didn't go to Ireland or Scotland, where he would certainly have found a wider audience for his abilities, or where he could have found success as a session musician and producer (like his ubiquitous friend, Steve Cooney).

But had he been ambitious, perhaps he wouldn't have been the Louis that everyone loved. After touring the world with the Bushwackers band for a couple of years in his late teens, he returned to Melbourne, where he would play music when and where he felt like it, and whenever anyone asked. He graced many records made by others as a session musician (earning the nickname of "One-Take McManus"), wrote music for shows and film, and played electric guitar in urban Aboriginal rock groups that he joined or formed after meeting Maxine Briggs, an Aboriginal woman who was to become his wife.

I always felt it was a shame that Louis never bothered to make a record to showcase his talents as a traditional musician. Perhaps nobody ever asked, or perhaps he didn't think that amazing the wider world was important. (I used to wish that I could come into a large sum of money so that I could finance such an endeavour for him!) It is sad that a record devoted to Louis' traditional playing had to wait until he became disabled, but at least the wider world can now gain a glimmer of the bright light of his talent.

A Personal Appreciation
In 1976 or 1977, when I was just embarking on my obsession with traditional music, I went to my local folk club in England to see an Australian band, the Bushwackers. I enjoyed the lively "bush music" (strongly Irish in origin) and humour (and even the dreaded lagerphone as I recall).

Halfway through the show, during an instrumental set, the front row of the band (Dobe Newton, Jan "Bill Smith" Wozitsky and Mick Slocum) parted to reveal a diminutive shaggy-haired figure perched on a bar stool, half-hidden behind what seemed an enormous acoustic guitar. This young man launched into a solo Irish reel with a precision, dynamism and force that made everyone sit up and gasp. Even to my then untrained ears, it was music of a totally different order.

This was my first encounter with Louis McManus. Four years later, newly arrived in Australia, by a stroke of luck I turned up in Melbourne at the very time that Poteen, then the traditional Irish band in the country, were looking for a new fiddle player. I was introduced by a kind friend and deemed to fill the bill. The band soon introduced me to their pal Louis (whose hair was by this time straighter and shorter).

In my four years in Australia I saw Louis reasonably often, mainly at parties and sessions. I'd go to see him perform any chance I got, although his stage appearances were frustratingly rare. Occasionally he would join Poteen on stage for a few tunes, and I was lucky to be in a recording studio with him on a few occasions.

A purely personal point needs to be understood about Louis: he was not only universally admired, but universally liked. He was amiable, and constantly laughing and joking. He never felt the need to draw attention to his talents, and never treated lesser musicians (such as myself, who was always acutely aware of, and in awe of, his abilities) as anything other than an equal. He was just one of the gang, although we all knew that musically he inhabited a far loftier plane. His humour could be acerbic, but I don't recall him saying anything mean-spirited about anybody. Louis stayed close to his family, whose pride in him remained immense through all the ups and downs of his life.

Louis the musician
Louis' playing is hard to describe without resorting to clichés. The biggest cliché of all applies perfectly: you just have to hear him. His music is guaranteed to astonish and delight.

On the mandolin, Louis was supreme. He seemed to be able to make the instrument do anything he wanted. His sound was brilliant, his rhythm unerringly precise, and he could vary and improvise at will. He could accompany songs with a tender, rippling sound that I can only describe as "liquid", and he could play traditional tunes - even slow airs! - with total mastery. His tremolo was perfect, like the humming of a bee, and he could slide into it and out of it as easily as breath can change direction in the nose.

Tenor banjo came next. I believe he learned it in the standard tenor banjo tuning (CGDA), but he could play traditional repertoire in this or the standard Irish tuning with equal facility. He played traditional tunes in a fairly percussive, explosive style, but could turn the banjo into an astonishingly lyrical instrument when the music required it.

My first unforgettable impression of Louis, described on the previous page, was of his flatpicking of traditional tunes on guitar. The initial impact was reinforced when I heard Louis again in Australia. How could anyone play melodies on an acoustic guitar with such clarity, such precision, such force - let alone a man of Louis' size? He probably weighed about 8 stone (112 pounds) at the time.

Louis seemed to be able to play any fretted instrument with equal facility. He would walk into sessions at "The Dan" in Melbourne and have something thrust into his hands. It didn't seem to matter what it was or how it was tuned, Louis would play it as it was the only instrument he'd ever touched. He would sometimes drop in to Poteen gigs and be persuaded (without undue difficulty) to join us on stage for a set of tunes. On these occasions he would pick up whatever was lying unused - bouzouki, guitar, 12-string, mandola - listen to a tune once through and then join in with a harmony or accompaniment of breathtaking ease and brilliance. He was also a capable electric guitarist and bassist.

Surprisingly for someone whose plectrum work is so incredibly clean, Louis' fiddling is very traditional sounding - old-fashioned, honest and unpretentious. He was probably precisely the fiddle player his father would love to have been. I recall hearing or reading that Louis did take a few classical violin lessons, but soon abandoned them because he thought the classical approach would destroy his traditional sound. Had he stuck with them, perhaps he would have become an Antipodean Eileen Ivers. I must say I'm glad that he didn't.

Louis is much more than an accomplished exponent of instruments however. As I got to know him and watched him operate in different contexts, particularly in the recording studio, it was his mastery of music that impressed me as much or more than his mastery of instruments. I have been lucky enough to meet, listen to and sometimes play with a number of remarkable musicians, but I have never met anyone like Louis McManus.