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Clive Carroll

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Clive Carroll - described by Acoustic Guitar magazine as ‘Probably the Best and Most Original Young Acoustic Guitar Player and Composer in Britain’. Born into a family of musicians in 1975, Clive has been immersed in a diverse range of music ever since. His father made him his first banjo in 1977 and a few years later he was playing in the family band. At 9 he started to play the guitar and a few years later he joined a Soul group and several orchestras.

In 1998, he gained a 1st Class Honours Degree in Composition & Guitar from Trinity College, London and whilst there he was also awarded a Prize to record Rodrigo's 'Concierto de Aranjuez' with the Trinity orchestra.

One night in 1998, Clive was given the opportunity to play a local show alongside British guitar hero John Renbourn. That night Renbourn encouraged him to record a solo album, and finally in 1999 after opening up for World class Guitar/Harp duo Chris Newman & Maire Ni Chathasaigh (who also happen to own the ‘Old Bridge Music’ record company) Clive was given his first record deal. The result was Sixth Sense (2000) and it has since been described as ‘a milestone in the journey of the steel-string guitar’.

Over the next two years John Renbourn took Clive on tour throughout Europe and the USA. 2002 saw the recording of Pachelbel’s Canon for BMG/RCA Victor but Clive’s next full-length solo album, ‘The Red Guitar’, wasn’t completed until late 2004. Earlier that year he was also introduced to Australian Guitar Legend, Tommy Emmanuel and he invited Clive to join him on a tour of Australia. Clive then continued to play shows with both Emmanuel and Renbourn all over the World and in 2005 he collaborated with Renbourn on the 2005 Sony Picture Classics film, ‘Driving Lessons’ starring Julie Walters & Rupert Grint.

The following year, Clive embarked on his own solo tours and he was also invited to play with the International Guitar Night of America (IGN). He has since played several tours with the IGN, collaborating with World Class guitarists such as Ralph Towner, D’Gary & Vishwa Moham Bhatt. 2006 also saw the release of a ‘Guitar Maestros’ DVD for the legendary recording studio company Sound Techniques. Other players in this series include Martin Simpson, Big Jim Sullivan & Martin Carthy.

Between tours Clive has been involved in many other side projects: he is a visiting artist and tutor at the Irish World Music Centre in Limerick, he has been asked to play at events in the UK by celebrities ranging from film director Guy Ritchie to top-chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, he holds an Annual Guitar Workshop in his local village and last summer Clive even took in a trip to the Middle East to play the Strings of Freedom Concert for the Sultanate of Oman. He also played at the IOM GuitarFest in August 2008.

November 2008 saw the release of Clive’s 3rd solo album, ‘Life in Colour’ and he is currently working on two non-solo recordings! (watch this space!)

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“It’s hard to deliver a gig to a chest of drawers in your bedroom. You worry about technique, then the recording can sound clinical”: How British acoustic great Clive Carroll tackled John Renbourn classics – and the psychological hurdles of home recording

Carroll’s new double-album, The Abbott, sees him perform the late John Renbourn’s work – he explains why and how he did it, and offers an in-depth guide to performing Renbourn’s masterpieces

Fingerstyle acoustic maestro Clive Carroll first met John Renbourn almost by accident. Studying at a London music conservatory, Clive decided to go home to his parents’ house one weekend and noticed that Renbourn was playing at his local folk club. He seized the opportunity, contacted the organiser and asked if he could open the show as support.

“So I turned up armed with some Elizabethan lute galliards, some Joe Pass-influenced numbers and some original pieces as well,” he tells us. “I met John briefly before I started, but what I didn’t realise was that he came up and listened to my entire set.” 

By the end of the night, John and Clive realised they shared a lot of musical tastes, specifically medieval/Renaissance music, jazz and some contemporary classical music. 

It became the basis for a friendship and touring partnership that lasted until Renbourn’s death in 2015. Since then, the occasional Renbourn piece had found its way into Clive’s setlist, but now his enthusiasm for his late mentor’s music has expanded into a CD and tour.

Looking back, how much of a bonus was your formal classical training?

“Well, I found that college was a great technique builder, and it opened my eyes and ears to music I would never have had the chance to study – or perhaps wouldn’t have wanted to, either. You’ve got to get this essay on Olivier Messiaen in by Friday, and so you’d better start studying. It was great to be told to do something and, musically, I think it was really helpful because you listen differently.” 

“When you start studying the inner workings of melody, harmony and rhythm you can’t listen to music the same way, and it shapes the way you write, as well. An interesting thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that when I was at music college, I was given a huge list of repertoires to learn on classical guitar that included a wide variety of genres.

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“And I’m thinking specifically of JS Bach. It was basically a suite a month and I learned them all because we had to. Then you had to perform either at an end-of-year recital or a lunchtime recital. There was a performance goal in sight, so you had to get it done.”

Tell us more what happened after that first gig where you met John Renbourn.

“I was really fortunate that John took an interest in what I was up to and invited me on the road. So I went straight from music college to touring with John in Europe, the UK and the US. We played a lot of concerts. I would open the shows, he would play the main gig, and then we’d play a few duos to finish the night. 

“For me, it was the perfect introduction to that world of playing in front of Renbourn fans and acoustic music fans. Further on down the line we hosted a few workshops, and we also wrote a film soundtrack together.” 

“A few years ago, in 2021, about six years after John died, I wanted to learn a few of his solo guitar pieces like The Lady And The Unicorn , Another Monday , Faro’s Rag and all the classics that have done the rounds in the acoustic guitar world that Renbourn didn’t play live. 

“So I thought it’d be fun to learn a whole bunch of these pieces and perhaps perform them live. But after learning a few classics, curiosity got the better of me and I ended up with a double-album’s worth of material that I thought might be fun to record. 

“Half of the album is on solo guitar, and the other half is either duos, groups or larger ensembles. It also includes two pieces that have never been recorded. They are for medieval ensemble, two guitars and electric bass and called Intrada, which is an introduction, and Danse Royale. 

“I found the pieces in the same folder as Estampie , which is a great piece of his from the album Traveller’s Prayer . He’d arranged some parts, which tells me that he’d intended to record it at some point but hadn’t found the right album yet.”

Which microphones did you use to record the guitar on The Abbott?

“I like the natural sound of the acoustic guitar, as opposed to a processed pickup sound. Though I do use the pickup sound from time to time for a specific colour, I don’t rely on it. So for the most part, I favour the large diaphragm [mic] sound, like a pair of [Neumann] U 87s, and I have an SE Electronics [Z5600a MKII] large diaphragm mic. There’s a bit more ‘air’ to the overall sound for fingerstyle guitar. 

“I think when you’re mixing a guitar within a track that has three, four, five or more players, you really need to place your guitar so it can’t take over the whole speaker system. Then I might use a Royer, or a Neumann KM 184 or something like that. 

“For the most part, they were large diaphragm mics and then maybe a small condenser for a bit of room sound. There are a couple of pieces that have DI on them, but I think they’re the ones that I needed some chorus effects on. 

“Renbourn liked a little chorus from time to time, so I used DI for the chorus – that kind of rich bottom-end that you could never achieve with a microphone. It was basically a bunch of Neumanns into a [Universal Audio] Apollo x8 audio interface recorded at 24-bit 48kHz into Logic. I used a stereo Neve 1073 preamp and that’s it. Just a dash of reverb here and there.” 

How was the whole recording experience for you?

“It’s great to have some high-end gear; the actual hi-fi quality sounds expensive, but at the end of the day, it’s all down to the performance. As long as you can capture that somehow, all the hardware is a bonus. But it means nothing without the delivery. 

“And it’s quite hard, I find, because I’m a live performer in terms of delivering an interpretation and so I play differently. It’s very hard to deliver a gig to a chest of drawers in your bedroom. You get overly worried about technique, then the recording can sound clinical and sterile. And that’s a huge learning curve. 

“Actually, I don’t think it ever goes away. There are some people that are brilliant at it; I’ve had to learn. I hear some of my earlier records and I can hear not necessarily the panic, but that there are other people in the room, saying, ‘Okay, Mr Carroll. Whenever you’re ready.’

“So having the opportunity to sit back and work up a performance and then prepare yourself psychologically to try to deliver it as if you’re in a gig – it’s a privileged position, really, we have in this day and age.”

Which studios did you use for the recording?

“For the most part there were two locations: one was the Premises Studios in East London and the other one was at ‘The Landing’ in Martlesham, Suffolk. And basically that means upstairs on the landing [at Clive’s house] because that had the best acoustics!”

The Lady and the Unicorn is a quite delicate lute-like piece. I had to record it at night because I tried doing it in the daytime and there was always the thought in the back of my mind that a lawn mower is going to start up

How did you cope with extraneous noise that comes with recording in a domestic environment? 

“It was really difficult, actually. Recording is all psychological. I’ve worked quite a lot in studios as a session player, and you just get on with it because you have to. Whereas when you record at home, you can stop. And psychologically, that can be quite a difficult hurdle. 

“You do have the luxury of being able to record whenever you like; if inspiration strikes at 3am, you can just flick on the red light and off you go. But it’s very easy to stop and think, ‘Oh, I could do that better.’ But then, after half a dozen takes, you’ve lost that initial spark that you hear when you play back the first and second takes. So all of these recordings are either first or second takes with the minimum amount of editing. 

“But there was another psychological meltdown, which was that I never knew when the next car was going to roll past. And some of it was done in the summertime so you had the birds to contend with. And lawn mowers. And strimmers…

“So I might be recording a piece – I’m thinking specifically of The Lady And The Unicorn , which is a quite delicate lute-like piece. I had to record it at night because I tried doing it in the daytime and, while I could do it, there was always the thought in the back of my mind that a lawn mower is going to start up in a minute, even though it never did. 

“I just got myself into that state. So I had to get up a little later so that I was awake in the evenings. Because the other downside is recording at 9 o’clock at night also means that your performance might sound a little tired. So sometimes I had a window of, say, 9 to 9:45 and if I didn’t get it I’d just shut the lid [of the laptop] and try again tomorrow.”

Have you changed your live setup for the forthcoming tour?

“Yeah. It’s very hard sometimes, delivering a gig with a pickup system, because you’re at the mercy of the sound man. Specifically, if it’s too trebly, you feel that brittle pickup sound when your fingers touch the strings. 

“I learned to deal with that over the years by having a blended system – a pickup/microphone combination where I just used the bass end from the pickup, and the mids and the treble from the microphone. What you can’t do, though, is play quieter; it still sounds like a pickup. If you’re just tickling the strings, it hasn’t got the same sonic vibe as the microphones. 

“It was actually during lockdown, when we were all delivering gigs from our living rooms, that I landed back in the world of a microphone-only performance and I got quite used to it. So now I’ve just got two small condenser mics and it’s great. I can play into the mics, I can back off the mics. I have them panned slightly and I have little reverb and that’s it. It suits the music I’m playing right now, especially for this Renbourn project.”

Tell us about your new Bown acoustic.

“I’m used to playing OM-sized guitars and this is an OMX, which means it’s about half an inch wider and deeper. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s causing havoc with my right arm [laughs]. The extra half-inch there just means your fingers aren’t quite where they used to be. But the sound is great. 

“There’s a much more rich bottom-end and midrange. I’ve been privileged to have Brazilian [rosewood] back and sides instruments all the time, but this one has Madagascan back and sides with a spruce top and it sounds big and rich already. 

“I’ve been playing it in for the whole summer at various festivals, gigs and workshops and it’s been sitting out in the sweltering heat and in the comfy confines of a recording studio and is managing to deal with all those situations. I’m quite enjoying it.”

• The Abbott is available now.

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With over 30 years’ experience writing for guitar magazines, including at one time occupying the role of editor for Guitarist and Guitar Techniques, David is also the best-selling author of a number of guitar books for Sanctuary Publishing, Music Sales, Mel Bay and Hal Leonard. As a player he has performed with blues sax legend Dick Heckstall-Smith, played rock ’n’ roll in Marty Wilde’s band, duetted with Martin Taylor and taken part in charity gigs backing Gary Moore, Bernie Marsden and Robbie McIntosh, among others. An avid composer of acoustic guitar instrumentals, he has released two acclaimed albums, Nocturnal and Arboretum .

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CLIVE CARROLL

Plays the music of john renbourn, john renbourn, dariush kanani.

AFTER THE GIG

Clive Carroll

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Clive Carroll

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Saturday 21 September 2019 8pm Music Room

Acclaimed guitarist and composer Clive Carroll has created a sound world all his own, with a signature blend of warmth and humour that belies his dazzling technical skill.

Clive’s masterful compositions feature influences mined from the delicate cadences of Elizabethan lute classics, the imaginative eccentricity of Frank Zappa, visionary classical composers such as Bartok and Ligeti, and hints of jazz and Delta blues.

Clive made his musical debut at age two and went on to earn a 1st Class Honours Degree in Composition and Guitar from the famed Trinity College of Music in London. He has toured and worked with guitar greats such as John Williams, Tommy Emmanuel, Xuefei Yang, Ralph Towner, and John Renbourn, as well as pop icon Madonna.

"Probably the best and most original young acoustic guitarist/composer in Britain" Acoustic Guitar Magazine

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A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

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Moscow: The city in Lewis Carroll’s footsteps

The only time Lewis Carroll traveled outside the British Isles was when he took a trip to Russia – and he threw himself into this adventure as impetuously as Alice going down the rabbit hole.

The role of the White Rabbit was played by Carroll’s friend and colleague Henry Liddon: On July 4, 1867 Liddon suggested to Carroll that they visit Russia, and, within just a week later, they had already set off.

Researchers believe that this is where Carroll got the idea of “Through the Looking-Glass.” Even if he did not, one thing is absolutely clear – Russia made a big impression on the writer.

First it was St. Petersburg, the “city of giants” with its wide streets (“even the secondary streets are wider than any in London”), then Moscow, where he spent two weeks, and Nizhny Novgorod, where he and Liddon dashed to the fair, naively hoping to get there and back in a day.

Carroll spent his time in Russia with the palpable enthusiasm of someone making a new discovery, excitedly transcribing long words such as “zashchishchaiushchikhsya” into his notebook, haggling enthusiastically with cab drivers and finding comparisons for Orthodox churches.

Those in Moscow, he thought, “outwardly resembled cactuses with sprouts in various colors,” and their domes resembled “curved mirrors” in which “pictures of the city’s life are reflected.”

The English writer busied himself with meeting Orthodox clergy, sampling the black bread eaten by the monks (“undoubtedly edible, but not appetising”), rattling over potholes, trying cabbage soup and rowanberry liqueur, buying icons and toys and going to the theatre – not daunted by the fact that the productions were in Russian.

Armed with a spyglass, he climbed up bell towers, did a good deal of walking and, fortunately, kept a diary.

Not all of the sights that impressed him survived the historic cataclysms that followed over the next century and a half, and some underwent a truly Carrollian metamorphosis – especially in Moscow, the “city of surprises” in which one can go for a walk in his footsteps.

Carroll and Liddon stayed in one of the most expensive hotels in pre-revolutionary Moscow – the Dussault, which was famous for its restaurant and guests, who included Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Writers were equally keen to place their characters here: In “Anna Karenina,” for example, Tolstoy sent Levin, Karenin and Vronsky to stay at the Dussault. The house itself was rebuilt and the hotel it housed was not preserved, but a hostel has recently appeared at this address (3, Teatralny Proyezd).

An even stranger fate awaited the “Moscow inn” where the two friends went to find out about Russian cuisine. This is now the site of the Hotel Moscow, where guests can also try some fine and tasty dishes – except the cuisine is now Mexican, not Russian.

It is well known that, “if you climb up the hill, you will be able to see all the surroundings.” That is precisely where Carroll started his acquaintance with Moscow – from the Sparrow Hills. There he got “a grand panorama of a whole forest of church bell towers and domes, with the bend of the Moskva River in the background.”

Nowadays, instead of bell towers, the vertical aspects of the landscape come from high-rise buildings from Stalin’s time. In the foreground the Luzhniki sports complex – a legacy of the 1980 Olympics – lies in the bend of the river.

It is still a popular viewing place for tourists, newlyweds and bikers. To add an element of the absurd to the view, though, you can ride on the cable car that links the viewing place with the embankment.

From the Sparrow Hills you can also get an excellent view of the Novodevichy Convent, which Carroll also visited. The writer did not share his impressions of Russia’s most famous convent in his diary, but he did say that its cemetery was picturesque and the gravestones were “distinguished by great taste and artistic feeling.”

A century later, the Novodevichy cemetery became one of the most honored in Moscow, as the burial place of artists and writers – including Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov – and politicians, including Nikita Khrushchev.

The beautiful convent itself was built in the 16 th -17 th centuries, and, in Carroll’s day, it was considered one of the richest in the city. From the moment it was opened, quite a number of distinguished women went to live in it – of course, not all of their own will.

After the revolution, its belfry housed a workshop for the artist Vladimir Tatlin, and the convent itself was turned into a museum. Nowadays, a convent is again functioning here, and, within its walls, it only takes a little effort to imagine that one is back in the 19 th century.

With his characteristic thoroughness, Carroll also studied the Kremlin: He climbed the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and examined numerous exhibits in the Armory (“thrones, crowns and valuables until they made my eyes ache, like blackberries”) and the palace (“a palace in comparison with which all other palaces must seem small and ordinary”).

And even the guide – “the most repulsive I’ve ever had to deal with” – did not prevent him discovering that St. Basil’s Cathedral was “as fanciful (almost fabulous) on the inside as on the outside .”

Of course, the pious Carroll was interested in St. Andrew’s Church . The only Anglican church in Moscow is situated in Voznesensky Lane. The austere, red-brick building that you can see today is a modern replica that had not yet been built in Carroll’s day.

Carroll also visited Orthodox services in Moscow monasteries several times. The Vysokopetrovsky monastery in the very center of the city, on Petrovka Street, is still open – although it is no longer necessary to get up at 5 a.m., as Carroll had to.

The morning services now start at 9 a.m. here, and you can visit after midday. If you are lucky you can also visit the refectory.

This point on Petrovka Street is one of the places where Carroll’s historic Moscow merges with the modern city. Directly opposite the monastery, the Museum of Modern Art includes the March café, its name making a light and unobtrusive allusion to the tea-drinking of Carroll’s heroes.

Other places forming part of the Carroll “legacy” that are worthy of attention are the panoramic White Rabbit restaurant (3, Smolensk Square) and the monument to the White Rabbit (54, Shcherbakovskaya Street).

After that, things become surreal: Even the writer himself would be surprised to learn that, in Moscow, the names of his characters and works can be found not only on restaurants, night clubs, design studios, and training and development centers, but also on beauty salons and even pay-by-the-hour hotels.

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Clive's Coastal Walk of Great Britain

Please scroll down for the latest news - updated 11th march 2023, the journey so far 1123 miles. ​(southwold, suffolk to inverness, scotland) updated march 5th 2023.