Down in Louisiana, when they're cooking up something in the kitchen, they tend to throw a little bit of everything in the pot. Applying that same homegrown creative philosophy to his life and to his music, singer/songwriter Todd O'Neill has concocted his own recipe for some seriously soulful, heartfelt and rockin' country music. With a critically acclaimed debut album already under his belt and fresh off the road from his year-long stint as a featured cast member in the hit production, Conway Twitty: The Man, The Myth, The Legend … The Musical, O'Neill is re-energized, refocused and more than ready to take his music to the next level.
"I look at everything in my career as a stepping stone and the Conway Twitty show was my biggest stepping stone yet," O'Neill says. "Learning all those guitar and vocal harmony parts, you really come to respect the guys playing behind the artists. I was also honored to sing Sam Moore's part on he and Conway's duet, 'Rainy Night in Georgia.'"
Perfected in countless honky tonks and dancehalls in the region around his hometown of Hammond, just north of New Orleans, O'Neill's all-inclusive country music vision embraces everything from tear-in-your-beer ballads to flat-out country rock anthems, wrapped up in a tall, good-looking package and delivered in a pure-country voice. Growing up in a musical melting pot, O'Neill was surrounded by a dizzying array of musical styles.
"My mom listened to country, my brother listened to rock 'n' roll, my sister liked pop music and my dad, oldies," O'Neill says with a laugh. "Everybody listened to something different. So when I was little, I really didn't have a favorite genre."
While he was absorbing all of his musical influences – from the eclectic sounds around his house to the rhythms of the Big Easy to the south – O'Neill was busy being a typical kid, concentrating on everything but music. But, while his singing may have been restricted to the shower and "the typical karaoke stuff kids do," O'Neill invariably found other ways to express his creative soul. A self-avowed "ham," he was known among friends to break out in a particularly inspired dance when the spirit(s) moved him. Hitting the dance floor one night at a hometown club, his "Napoleon Dynamite" moves caught the attention of guitarist Scott Feske, who was onstage with his band, Big Cat Daddy.
"Scott asked me where I'd ever learned to dance like that, and all my friends said, 'You ought to hear him sing!'" O'Neill recalls. "This was just a little club in Hammond on a Friday night. I got up and sang Travis Tritt's 'Here's a Quarter,' and I blew them away. That was the first time I was onstage, and I loved it. It was like an addiction.""
For O'Neill, that initial performance was the beginning of some important friendships, and, though he didn't quite know it at the time, the beginning a great career in country music. Feske invited the young singer back, and O'Neill eventually joined the group on the road. Armed with the 110-proof power of their new singer's one-of-a-kind country voice and heartthrob appeal, Big Cat Daddy quickly morphed into Todd O'Neill and Big Cat Daddy, before the singer finally earned top billing as a solo artist READ MORE HERE>
