Clive Carroll
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Clive Carroll

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Discography


Sixth Sense CD (Old Bridge Music)
The Red Guitar CD (Private Release)
Live in Concert DVD (Hard Road)

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Clive Carroll - Guitar Player Extrordinaire

OK, so another hot-shot guitar player is not likely to blow your dress up, right ? Well, spare a little time for this young man (he’s twenty-nine) from Chelmsford because he may just force you to re-consider 1
Anyone who has opened for the smooth soul king, Alexander O’Neal and the slightly more raucous Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings must, at the very least, be accessible. Add to that his attendance, in London, at the private functions of a certain Madonna Ciccione, at the lady’s personal request, and you have someone with something other than good fortune !
On the credibility side, he has toured the USA and Australia with the guitar world’s ultimate showman, Tommy Emmanuel, as well as UK and US tours with another world class acoustic guitarist, John Renbourn.
Of course, Clive did not make those gigs by simply being close to hand ! He has played guitar (and banjo) from the age of four and worked his way through the family band - playing the Irish traditional material of his parents - and in teen rock, soul and country bands and orchestras, too. This unassuming yet ambitious guy tends to play-down the first in Composition & Guitar that he picked-up at Trinity College, London and the numerous other awards for his solo work like the coveted Ivor Mairants Guitar Award whilst studying there. The academic call has not left him completely as he makes regular trips to Limerick University to teach guitar on the Traditional Irish Music Masters degree course. There is, though, none of the starchy academic baggage which can limit some formally trained players. His critically acclaimed first album, Sixth Sense, is replete with Irish influences but there are echoes of the late American acoustic guitar innovator, Michael Hedges and the melodic sense of Nick Drake. His own compositions are inventive, memorably tuneful and daring without ever drowning the melody in showboating technique.
That last word, technique, is never likely to be too far removed from the name Clive Carroll because it truly is a thing of wonder. To master the depths of jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s Black Nile or his own Les Petites Clochettes (which he dedicates to Renbourn) - both on the new Red Guitar CD - and then pull-out something like Albinez’s Asturias (featured on his live DVD) requires the touch of a genius. That last named piece executed like a high-wire act, a classical composition on steel-strung guitar, is astonishing. However, with just a small amount of encouragement he can fire-off Hendrix licks or drop into a ridiculously comedic yet perfectly played Duelling Banjos, both parts ! Carroll’s music has an appeal which extends beyond the first few rows of guitar anoraks. Just an open mind, that’s the only real requirement !
His albums have made the play-lists of both Bob Harris and Mike Harding on BBC Radio 2 and he has been invited to appear at festivals across the planet making a particular impression at the “pickers’ Olympics” - the Chet Atkins Convention in Nashville where even the doorman can really play !
So, Clive Carroll is no mere guitarist clone. There really is nobody else like him because all of those previous experiences - Irish, rock, folk, country, jazz and classical – have been fully absorbed into his soul and that incredible technique allows him to go wherever his imagination cares to take him. You will not have heard anything quite like Red Guitar because this latter day alchemist really has conjured gold from steel and wood !

He's been awarded many awards:

1994 John Halford Prize for Composition
1994 Gladys Puttick Memorial Prize for Extemporisation
1997 Ivor Mairants Guitar Award
1997 Continuum Ensemble ~ National Improvisation Competition (Finalist)
1998 Gladys Puttick Memorial Prize for Extemporisation
1998 Montagu Cleeve Prize for Guitar