Meet the Poets
Cocktail Poets
Cocktail Poets grew from a close friendship and a mutual love of music across a wide spectrum of artists and genre's. The common themes being great lyrics, a performance that connected the listener and hummable (mostly) tunes. After a period of creating acoustic versions of beloved songs, we focused on writing our own material, based on a range of personal experiences and world views. Writing from the heart is an essential element of our songs and poems.
Poet Bio's
Paul James
Music has always been an important part of my life. As a young boy I started singing in my school choir and shortly thereafter picked up my first guitar.
I loved to play but honestly it also competed with my passion for sports and acting. As I got older I started playing more and began writing. I had a wide variety of musical tastes and many of them guided my approach such as Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Jethro Tull and Harry Chapin although I certainly couldn’t play or write like any of them.
I played in a couple of Bay Area bands, Guilt Trip in the mid 90’s and Fast Lane Band in the early 2000’s which really gave me a thirst for writing and performing.
Fast forward to today and I am thrilled to have formed Cocktail Poets with Gordon. From early on it seems there was a certain “kismet” in our collaboration as we developed our writing and musical style. Working together in “Poets” as fellow musicians and close friends allows us to share our life experiences, observations and imagination.
Gordon Smith
My early influences growing up in Ireland came from a love of acoustic guitar, with artists like John Martyn, Bert Jansh and Jackson Browne. Even though this is my best Phil Lynott look
After forming a folk duo and playing local clubs we added a fiddle player, a vocalist and became Rin Tin Tin. The highlight of our short career, before going our separate ways, was playing a festival in La Rouche-Sur-Yon. Unfortunately (or maybe not) this was before social media and Youtube, so no evidence exists.
Eventually in 2000, I ended up in California. Soon thereafter I met Paul who became a lifelong friend. Our musical collaboration started with a 4 piece electric cover band.
I'd been writing peoms and songs for a long time, so it was a natural evolution for Paul and I to follow our true passion writing our own material.
In 2019 we officially formed Cocktail Poets as the vehicle to share our music, poetry and our other passion as amateur mixologists.
