Davy Carton
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Davy Carton (born April 10, 1959) is a singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist from Tuam, County Galway, in the Republic of Ireland. He is best known as a core member of The Saw Doctors, the folk-rock band he co-founded in 1987.
[edit] Biography and Musical Career
Born in Islington, London, Carton moved permanently to Tuam with his family in 1966. As a teenager he attended Tuam's Christian Brothers school, where he met Paul Cunniffe, Paul Ralph, and Ja Keating, with whom he formed the punk band Blaze X. He took a job in a local textile factory after leaving school, but continued to play with Blaze X until they dissolved in 1981, the year in which he married his girlfriend Trisha.
Working full-time in the textile factory throughout Ireland's economically bleak 1980s, Carton largely put his musical career on hold to support his wife and three young sons. He finally gave up his day job in 1989, at the age of thirty, when The Saw Doctors, the band he had formed two years earlier with Leo Moran and others, rose to prominence and began touring with bands including The Waterboys, The Hothouse Flowers, and The Stunning.
Over the course of their two-decade career, The Saw Doctors have released six studio albums, two live albums, a concert DVD ("Live in Galway"), and several compilation albums. They have also toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States, where they have particular appeal with Irish emigrant communities. Noted for his witty, rapacious lyrics, Carton co-wrote "I Useta Lover", which holds the record for Ireland's best-selling single of all time, having spent nine weeks at number one in the Irish charts in 1990.
