Luis Villegas
| Luis Villegas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 28, 1969 East Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Origin |
 East Los Angeles, California, U.S.
|
| Genres | Jazz, Latin, world, new-age |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Guitarist, Songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, Vocals |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Labels | Domo Records, Baja/TSR Records, Tenure Records, Indie |
| Website | www.luisvillegas.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Custom-made Flamenco guitar made by Pedro Maldonado in Malaga, Spain in 1999 | |
Luis Villegas (born July 28, 1969) is a Mexican American guitarist best known for his debut CD Cafe Olé, which mixed new-age music, flamenco, and jazz and garnered a spot on the Grammy ballot for Best New Age Album of the Year in 1999. He is known for using a technique of playing fast, intricate lines by using the fingernail of his right index finger in place of a guitar pick. He also had a small role, as a member of a band, in the film Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. Currently, he is a member of the group "Heavy Mellow" along with founder Benjamin Woods and percussionist Mike Bennett.
Luis Villegas is a first-generation Mexican-American born in East Los Angeles, CA. A self-taught guitarist who plays flamenco, jazz, rock, blues and classical, he grew up listening to traditional Mexican Ranchero music. As a boy, he met the famous Mexican Ranchero singer, Vicente Fernandez. It was not Mexican music, however, that attracted him to the guitar but rock and roll since the heavy metal explosion was in full swing in Los Angeles.
Luis played in rock bands all through High School and into college garnering some mild success with the band Slumlord in 1988 and 1989 fronted by Scott Kidd who later went on to become a famous radio DJ known as Uncle Scotty. Luis quit Slumlord in 1990 when he found he needed a different stimulus to fuel his musical visions.
That new vision began to grow when he picked up the acoustic guitar and started experimenting with classical, jazz, and even flamenco music. Being self-taught, he emulated guitarists from the records he listened to like Wes Montgomery, Paco De Lucia, and Al Di Meola among others. Many of his current techniques are based on flamenco guitar techniques such as rasgueado, alzapua and picado.
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