List of American musicians of Irish descent
This is a list of notable Irish American musicians.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article and/or references showing the person is Irish American and a notable musician.
Musicians
- Danny Hutton - One of the three lead vocalists in the band, Three Dog Night.
- Anastacia - American singer and songwriter
- Tori Amos - singer/songwriter and musician
- Greg Graffin - singer/songwriter for Bad Religion
- Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park
- Michael Barber, Universal Records Musician, founder of ECP Music Group, self proclaimed Irish Jesus[1]
- Michelle Branch[2] Is part Irish through her father.
- Benjamin Burnley, lead singer of Breaking Benjamin
- Billie Joe Armstrong - lead singer/guitarist of Green Day, partial Irish descent
- Chris Byrne[3]
- Mariah Carey[4]
- Nick Carter - Member of The Backstreet Boys
- Aaron Carter, singer and Nick Carter's brother
- Dennis Casey - Flogging Molly member[5]
- Ken Casey[6] - Bass player and vocalist for the Boston based punk rock band, Dropkick Murphys
- Celtic Spring[7]
- Kelly Clarkson[8]
- Rosemary Clooney[9]
- Kurt Cobain singer/songwriter of Nirvana[10]
- George M. Cohan singer and songwriter, vaudeville and Broadway stage
- Judy Collins[11]
- Chris Cornell - lead singer of Soundgarden[12]
- Billy Corgan - singer, lead guitarist of The Smashing Pumpkins[13]
- Miranda Cosgrove
- Bing Crosby[14]
- Chris Daughtry, former American Idol 2006 finalist and lead singer of the rock band Daughtry
- Lee DeWyze, 2010 winner
- Marié Digby- singer/songerwriter[15]
- Howie Dorough - Member of The Backstreet Boys. He is 50% Irish by his father.
- Jimmy Dorsey[16]
- Tommy Dorsey[17]
- Tommy Dunn- Irish American singer/songwriter whose 1976 album "Down by the Glenside" was a huge hit in the New York area and played extensively on WFUV radio.
- Everlast (1969 - ) singer-songwriter, known for his genre-crossing mix of rap and acoustic-based rock music[18]
- Eileen Farrell[19]
- John Farrell member of the group Fathom (both parents are Irish)
- John Fogerty - singer/songwriter Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Judy Garland[20]
- Victor Herbert[21]
- Kirk Hammett - Metallica guitarist (Irish Father, Fillipino Mother)
- James Hetfield - Metallica lead singer/guitarist
- Brent Hinds - Singer/Guitarist for Mastodon
- Dexter Holland - lead singer/guitarist of The Offspring
- Julianne Hough, country music singer and ballroom dancer
- Andy Hurley - drummer for Fall Out Boy
- Jonas Brothers[22] Irish descent is from their maternal grandfather
- Bill Kelliher[23](1971-) guitarist for Heavy Metal band Mastodon. Kelliher's father was an Irish immigrant who moved to New York in the 1950s.
- Alicia Keys[24]
- Dave King[25]
- Chris Kirkpatrick (former member of N Sync)
- Larry Kirwan[26]
- Demi Lovato[27] Demis is of Hispanic, Italian and Irish ancestry.
- Lorna Luft[28]
- Benji Madden, Lead guitarist of the band Good Charlotte, (both parents are Irish)
- Joel Madden, Lead singer of the band Good Charlotte, (both parents are Irish)
- Meaghan Jette Martin, actress-singer from Camp Rock
- John McCormack[29]
- Mike McColgan - Former lead singer of the Dropkick Murphys, now the vocalist of the Street Dogs
- Tim McGraw, American singer (both parents have Irish ancestry)
- The Mc Guire Sisters - Biggest selling female vocal group of the 50's
- Katharine McPhee- American singer, runner-up on season 5 of American Idol
- Natalie Merchant, singer (her mother is of Irish descent)
- Mandy Moore, singer and actress (father is Irish)
- Jim Morrison, singer/songwriter of The Doors
- Lacey Mosley, lead singer of Flyleaf
- Gerry Mulligan[30]
- Willie Nile, American Rock Singer-Songwriter
- Bradley Nowell - late lead singer/guitarist for Sublime
- Virginia O'Brien[31]
- Aubrey O'Day, member of the group Danity Kane
- Robert Pollard, singer/songwriter and leader of Guided by Voices, from Dayton, Ohio
- Seth Putnam[32]
- Carmel Quinn[33]
- Kevin Richardson - Member of The Backstreet Boys
- Christopher "Kid" Reid - Rapper of Jamaican and Irish descent
- Bianca Ryan[34]
- Rihanna[35]
- Patrick Stump, Singer and songwriter for Fall Out Boy
- Jessica Sutta, Member of The Pussycat Dolls
- Taylor Swift, country singer
- Stuart Michael Thomas, Film and TV composer/producer[36]
- Slaine Rapper
- Chris Trousdale (1985 - ) singer, former member of Dream Street[37]
- Shania Twain, singer
- Danielle White, young singer from American Juniors
- Ace Young, singer from American Idol[38]
- Brendon Urie, Lead Singer of Alternative band Panic At The Disco
- Christina Aguilera, father Ecuadorian, mother Irish American
- Amy Lee, lead singer of Evanescence
- Bruce Springsteen, Singer, Musician and Songwriter
- Fergie
- Britney Spears, dance-pop singer of British, Irish, and Maltese descent
- Carly Smithson, a Dublin, Ireland native who placed 6th on the seventh installment of American Idol and is now the lead singer of the band We Are the Fallen.
- Copywrite - American rapper of mixed Irish and Italian descent.
- ^ http://freakzappeal.com/artist-michael-barber
- ^ [1] Mike: I learned that your dad is Irish, and your mom is Dutch Indonesian and French.
- ^ [2] "Irish-American recording artist Chris Byrne, familiar to Irish music fans as Seanchai (pronounced SHAN-a-kee), and as a founder of the Irish musical group, Black 47..."
- ^ [3] "I've always said that my father is half black and half Venezuelan and my mother is Irish. But people don't understand... They can't fathom that I'm African American, Venezuelan and Irish."
- ^ The punk of the Irish :: Honolulu Weekly
- ^ [4] "Ken Casey’s Boston-Irish immigrant family experience is in many ways very similar..."
- ^ [5] "Born into a family of Irish descent, the Wood children, Elizabeth, (20), Deirdre, (18), Sean, (16), Patrick, (14), and Maire, (10), reside in the rural Ojai Valley in Southern California, with their parents and their little brother, Aidan"
- ^ [6] "I'm Greek and Irish."
- ^ [7] "Clooney was born into a troubled family of Irish Catholics in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1928..."
- ^ Cobain: Actually it was, but the Coburns screwed it up when they came over. They came from County Cork, which is a really weird coincidence, because when we toured Ireland, we played in Cork and the entire day I walked around in a daze. I'd never felt more spiritual in my life. It was the weirdest feeling and-I have a friend who was with me who could testify to this-I was almost in tears the whole day. Since that tour, which was about two years ago, I've had a sense that I was from Ireland.
- ^ [8] "I was born with the Irish virus. That's easy. I came by it honestly through centuries and centuries of ancestors, I am sure..."
- ^ [9] "I'm Irish: If I could get the cap off something, I would drink it."
- ^ "I'm Irish and I was born on St. Patrick's day. I'm lucky sevens."
- ^ [10] "Bing’s mother was of Irish descent and his father was descended from a maritime family." [11]
- ^ [12]"Marié is of Japanese and Irish descent"
- ^ [13] "heritage Irish"
- ^ [14] "Irish-American trombonist Tommy Dorsey, more than two years younger (according to recently unearthed baptismal papers) than his clarinetist and alto saxophonist brother Jimmy..."
- ^ [15] "OH, FOR THE DAYS when Everlast was Irish, angry, and proud of it."
- ^ [16] [17] "The daughter of Irish-American vaudeville singers..."
- ^ [18][19] "What would "White Christmas" have sounded like if Bing Crosby (great-grandfather from Co. Cork) hadn't made it a hit? Ditto for "Over the Rainbow", sung by Judy Garland (grandmother Fitzpatrick from Dublin), whose popularity in Ireland was so great that the song It's A Great Day for the Irish was written especially for her."
- ^ [20] "Victor Herbert, an Irish-born American composer and conductor of operettas and light music..."
- ^ [21] "Maternal grandfather is of Irish descent"
- ^ [22] "Father was an Irish immigrant"
- ^ [23] Her mother is Irish-Italian..."
- ^ [24] "For Dave King, the Dublin-born singer/guitarist/songwriter of SideOneDummy recording group Flogging Molly..."
- ^ [25] "Irish playwright and musician Larry Kirwan" [26] "Larry Kirwan, a native of Wexford on the southeast coast of Ireland, writes the songs of Black 47..."
- ^ [27] "Demi is of Hispanic, Italian and Irish descent."
- ^ [28] daughter of Judy Garland and (half) sister of Liza Minnelli "and developed the powerful Irish charm and sense of style that stayed with him for the rest of his life. My family has sometimes survived on (Irish) charm alone."
- ^ [29] "John McCormack ( Irish Tenor )" [30] "...was one of the greatest singers of this century, born in Ireland in 1884 to working class parents."
- ^ lphares.com
- ^ [31] "Her Irish father was the captain of detectives of the Los Angeles Police Department and later the city’s deputy district attorney."
- ^ .htm "I’m half English and half Irish." .htm "Basically I’m.. if you really want to know my ethnic background... I’m a quarter Irish and a Quarter English. My father’s side of the Family was English and they came here in 1630. And my mother’s side of the family... there was a potato famine."
- ^ [32] [33] "show is an evening of songs and stories based on Quinn's early life in Dublin..."
- ^ The Bob Rivers Show: 11-year-old singing sensation Bianca Ryan shows us why she's got talent
- ^ [34]
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1580630/
- ^ Trousdale - [35] "Well my background is Greek and something called Black Irish. It’s an ethnic Irish. It’s not the blonde haired blue eyed Irish. My mom can almost look Spanish. She has really dark dark eyes. So it’s basically like an Italian Irish or a Spanish Irish. It’s dark. So yeah, Greek and Black Irish..."
- ^ "No one really sounds like me. I'm German-Irish but for some reason I have soul in me. I've always had it - ever since I was a kid. So I'm bringing my spirit and my heart because every song I sing, I'm telling a story."