He grew up listening to traditional Mexican Ranchero music and taught himself to play guitar in the flamenco, jazz, rock, blues and classical genres.
Being self-taught, he emulated guitarists from the records he listened to like Wes Montgomery, Paco De Lucia, and Al Di Meola among others.
], which originally consisted of friends from rock bands he had previously played with, formed a huge following in the Los Angeles area[citation needed].
In 1996, Villegas recorded and released his first CD independently entitled Café Ole, produced by David Scheffler and Guillermo Guzman.
Members of his band as well as studio musicians, Gregg Bissonette, Abraham Laboriel, and The Rippingtons' Steve Reid, among others lent their talents to the CD.
Guitarists worldwide took notice when Villegas' name appeared alongside guitar icons such as Al Di Meola, Steve Morse, Ottmar Liebert, Jesse Cook and Strunz & Farah[citation needed].
After working on it for some time, negotiations for producing the album fell through and Luis subsequently left the label to pursue his career as an independent artist.
Then, in 2007, the album was updated with several additional songs and a new cover and licensed to the Tenure label, under the guidance of Juan Carlos Quintero.
On December 21, 2007, Luis was featured in an interview with Val Zavala and performed with several of his band members on the PBS television show "Life and Times."