Born in New York City on December 4, 1967, fingerstyle guitar virtuoso Eric Roche grew up in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. Although he trained on classical guitar as a young musician, he cultivated an original percussive polyphonic technique that drew from folk, country, pop, and traditional Irish sources. He completed an accounting degree and spent a brief period practicing that profession in London during the early 1990s, yet remained devoted to the instrument. In 1992 he set aside his business career to attend the Musicians' Institute, becoming head of its guitar department four years afterward.
His first album, The Perc U Lator, appeared in 1999 to widespread praise. The next year he became head of guitar at Guildford's Academy of Contemporary Music, then issued his second album, Spin, in 2001. He also supplied regular columns on fingerstyle technique to Guitar Techniques and Acoustic while leading master classes and workshops across three continents. In 2004 he joined the P3 label for his third release, With These Hands, and published the book The Acoustic Guitar Bible the same year. These milestones occurred just as he began his struggle with cancer, the disease that ended his life on September 6, 2005.
