About Clive Carroll
Clive Carroll is a virtuoso guitarist and one of the finger-style world’s brightest stars.
Born in England, he began his musical journey in Chelmsford, Essex. His parents (one English, one Irish) had a taste for American country and old time music and it wasn’t long before Clive was playing in the family band on a homemade banjo. By his early teens, guitar in hand, Clive was traversing the worlds of soul, pop, funk, and traditional Irish music, balancing his affinity for Slayer with the etudes of Tárrega.
This breadth of musical curiosity was to become one of his strengths; even as a kid Clive was as comfortable accompanying a group of folk singers as he was jamming along to Nirvana, or reading charts on banjo and guitar in theatre orchestra pits.
Clive went on to earn a 1st Class Honours Degree in Composition and Guitar from the famed Trinity College of Music in London, all the while balancing his classical work with forays into the world of the steel string guitar. By the time he graduated from Trinity, Clive had not only penned orchestral works, he had written an album’s worth of solo acoustic guitar music.
Very shortly afterwards, he was booked to play support to Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, London, and they were so impressed that they asked him on the spot if he’d like to make a solo album for their label, Old Bridge Music!
Old Bridge Music therefore released his extraordinary début album, Sixth Sense, in 1999.
“Probably the best and most original guitar player and composer in Britain”
ACOUSTIC GUITAR MAGAZINE
“Technically perfect whizzkid… a delightful ear for melody”
fROOTS
“A young and supremely gifted carrier of the ‘British fingerstyle’ flag… Compositionally assured, with a breathtaking mastery of techniques, this is stunning and eminently listenable stuff.”
MOJO