Paddy Casey

Paddy Casey [ tickets ] might seem like an emerging artist here in the United States, but in his native Ireland, he's already reached icon status. His second album, 2005's "Living," went 11 times platinum, landing him the second-best-selling album of the year behind fellow countrymen U2.

Casey garnered American music industry attention when he played the US-Ireland Alliance pre-Oscar party in Los Angeles in March 2006. Music bigwig Larry Hamby, the A&R man responsible for crafting Michael Jackson's "Thriller" into the best-selling album of all time, cornered Casey and encouraged him to record his next album stateside.

The result: "Addicted to Company," an organized hodgepodge of styles ranging from old-school Philadelphia soul featuring established session background singers to brooding melodies scattered with personal insight and tons of emotion. This, the third release of his career, is finally putting Paddy Casey on American airwaves and possibly best-of lists.

Paddy Casey will join KT Tunstall for a month-long US tour in May before taking off with Augustana to tour the Southern states through mid-June.