Carson Louis- People You Should Know

Business and Lifestyle, Entertainment, People You Should Know — By Buddy Sampson on October 30, 2017 at 1:52 am

By Buddy Sampson

A Meteoric Young Talent with an Old Soul

Carson Louis is taking a dual role in music-he’s running a project studio, and he also is a talented artist, having worked with Gavin McGraw and Hunter Hayes among others. He has studied with drum phenom Billy Johnson, who has worked with the likes of Joyce Cooling, Frankie Beverly and Maze and Santana. “He’s the guy that got me into the drums,” said Carson. If you were to look at Carson’s handsome looks, you would think he’s a pop singer, but his roots lie in old school rhythm and blues. He grew up in Lake County, California, a small town located two hours north of San Francisco.”It’s located in the middle of nowhere, a small country town where not a lot happens,” he joked. “But I grew up with soul music and funk. When I was growing up on that kind of stuff, where I’m from, because I’m from such a little small town, it was always really different when the little white guy down the street was always listening to that stuff. But I think I take that old school kind of feel that I love about music and try to bring it into today’s age, like a lot of the R&B guys do and the hip hop guys do.”  Yes Carson Louis is a young man with an old soul.

Growing up in a small town, he found it easy to gain skill as a musician. “The advantage is that because there’s not much around you, and not much to do, you get to really focus on music.” And he did, gaining considerable skill as a drummer, learning several different styles of music, including rock and blues. Some of his early learning came from frequenting the local neighborhood restaurant and bar. “There was a small blues club right down the street from my house and there was this blues singer that I’ve always known as my aunt, Bettie Mae Fikes,” he said. “Bettie Mae Fikes is considered the Queen of the Blues. She was considered the voice of Selma.  She was very big in the music world and very big in the civil rights movement.” Indeed if you visit her website, www.bettiefikes.com, you’ll be able to see that this young man hung with very good company. “While visiting this nightclub as a young man, he learned from two of the musicians in Bettie Mae Fikes’s band, Billy Johnson and another mentor of his, Rob Watson. Rob Watson, a guitarist, has worked as James Brown’s Musical Director and with MC Hammer among others. “And at eight years old, I would get up and start dancing, because I was always a dancer,” said Carson, about seeing Bettie Mae Fikes and her band perform as a kid. “She was always my aunt.” Watson took Carson under his wing; letting him sit in the band as a drummer, until one day, Billy Johnson couldn’t make the gig. “Well, Billy’s going to be out of here tonight, so you’re playing the whole set,” he said. Watson helped him gain confidence as a drummer. “I learned from him how to groove over changes, and how to play with different players. “

After learning the piano and keyboards, Carson gained the tools to become a songwriter. Later, he toured with Bettie Mae Fikes, and launched a band, and wrote a song, “I’ll Be Here,” which generated over 2,000 streams in just two days and co-wrote with Cody Simpson, an Australian pop star.  His drum influences include Dennis Chambers, Steve Jordon, Aaron Spears and Eric Moore among others. “I like really, really great, groovy pop drummers,” he explained. And he has had the best of teachers.

Carson is undertaking a venture, Carson Louis Productions, which includes a studio where musicians can learn, and record their project demos in his home city of Huntington Beach because of, well, practical reasons, as anyone who lived in Los Angeles knows. “I was so sick of driving to Los Angeles all the time,” he said.

The studio is soundproofed, double dry walled, to keep sound from escaping. In addition, the windows have been double coated for the richness of sound quality. The music software includes Pro Tools and Logic, two of the most widely used music programs used in today’s industry. The studio is also equipped with an Apollo Twin interface, a full pearl reference series drum set, many guitars and more. They also have great microphones including an AEA N22, RCA 74b, MXL 990, MXL 991 and many more. “I’ll come in with a song idea and start bouncing it off my engineer Jimmy Hua, “he explained. “The nice thing about having an engineer who’s also a songwriter, is that’s he’s good for feedback.” Carson does most of his writing on the piano. “I have him hit record for 20 or 30 minutes and just record everything I do,” said Carson, referring to keeping a recorded log of ideas.

Carson mentions the future for the studio.”The goal for this studio, essentially for being a songwriter, is to write the songs here and then take those to the bigger studios in Los Angeles to record them,” said Carson. For a session, it’s $100 a day. If you are a recording artist and you are writing songs for a project and have a budget from a record company for pre-production, his studio is more than ideal. Carson will help mold your project and give you guidance from a songwriter’s perspective.  Visit his website at

While sitting down with Carson, you are immediately impressed by his knowledge of music and pop, particularly soul music. When we sat down to interview this young phenom, we were impressed by his knowledge of soul music and rhythm and blues. He really likes the old R&B artists, like Michael Jackson. “He was the king of the 80’s, “he said.”You would hear an album and every song had a different character.” He also is a huge fan of the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown. “James Brown had a way of commanding the stage, and the song- this it’s how it’s going to be,” he laughed. “If you don’t move to it, there’s something wrong with you.” Carson Louis comes across an old soul transported to a young person’s body. This amazing talent, Carson Louis, for that reason, is one of the People You Should Know.