He played by ear, as many in his day did, and worked from around 1918 in both New Orleans and on the riverboats that ferried passengers up and down the Mississippi and offered diversions like gambling and music to up-river audiences.
He remained out of professional music until someone from the Preservation Hall in New Orleans recognized him on a tour date around 1979 or 1980 and an invitation was extended for him to come and play with the Hall, teach a new generation of musicians the music, and work with musicians who tapped his knowledge base to transcribe tunes that would be all but lost.
[2] Lewis was a huge catalog of tunes from the early Dixieland years in New Orleans that were played and passed on by ear, and never written down.
He recorded a self-entitled album "Father Al Lewis" an LP that was later converted for Compact Disc (CD).
He died on Sunday, April 12, 1992, at Lady of the Sea Hospital in Galliano, Louisiana, forty miles south of New Orleans.