Paddy Rocks is a talented singer and guitarist with a lifetime of experience as a solo artist but also with numerous bands performing everything from Irish and contemporary folk through to rock, blues, swing and reggae. He has lived and worked as an entertainer in Ireland, southern Africa and, in more recent years, the south of Italy, appearing at weddings, corporate and private parties, clubs and pubs. During his career he has worked in recording studios, on albums and commercial jingles and featured on various television and radio programmes.
His musical repertoire is broad and varied - he really enjoys playing a wide mixture of songs and likes to alternate styles to give what most people want when they go out for an evening's entertainment - variety!
He claims his mother was the underlying influence! There was always music at home and one of his brothers or sisters was always practising on piano. He was sent to piano lessons at the age of 10 and, even if he found his music teacher a total drag, he developed a fondness for classical music. But like so many kids he was fascinated by rock 'n roll, so in the early days Buddy Holly, Elvis, and Sam Cooke, etc. were his staple musical diet, and so he learned guitar to express himself. Somehow he got into Irish folk music in a big way and ended up playing banjo with The Harvesters in Belfast, looking to be similar to but also different from the Dubliners, with whom they once shared a stage. Then The Beatles, The Stones and later The Eagles came along, and he was brought back to his roots in rock. Nowadays it's the music of greats like James Taylor, Van Morrison, REM and Eric Clapton that turns him on, but he still loves to play and sing the songs of Dylan, Tom Paxton, Harry Chapin, Rod Stewart, Crowded House and more. His old buddy and ex-partner in crime Frank Wright brought out the 'rasta' in his soul, and so Bob Marley gets a look in too. He plays some jazz, and even if he isn't a jazz freak he loves 'the Great American Song Book' so there's some old swing standards in his repertoire too.
Click on the Music link for some samples and find a song list. Click on the Contact link if you want to get in touch.
