John Doyle

Who is John Doyle?

John Doyle is an Irish musician and songwriter. For four years he served as acoustic guitarist with the Irish-American band Solas. He is now an active solo artist. He has written many traditional-style songs and has collaborated with the likes of Kate Rusby, Susan McKeown, Karan Casey and Heidi Talbot.

Doyle also has producing credits on several albums including Heidi Talbot's debut solo release Distant Future, renowned American fiddle player Liz Carroll's Lake Effect, and his father Sean Doyle's CD, The Light and the Half Light.

Doyle is a highly accomplished guitarist with a trademark style for backing up other musicians. A left-handed player, his style involves the use of bass string damping with the heel of the left hand combined with a constant, metronome-like strumming pattern and nimble movement up and down the neck with the right hand to incorporate bass lines and chordal variations. Combined with other dynamic techniques such as string choking with the right hand, the resulting sound is full and highly rhythmical.

Doyle plays guitar in many different tunings, but is perhaps best known for using the 'Dropped D' tuning for backing up other musicians.