POPULAR Scott’s Head cafe-restaurant Scotts Hub will host a much anticipated intimate solo concert by world-travelled musician and composer Paul Fogarty on August 20.

It’s almost a year since prolific singer-songwriter Paul Fogarty moved his family from Europe back home to Australia due to the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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“We had always planned to move back to Oz at some point but Covid gave us a definite push,” Fogarty says.

Paul spent most of the past 20 years based in Germany writing songs for television, film and commercials and playing concerts and festivals throughout the Euro zone.

His songs have been heard by half-a-billion people after featuring in ground-breaking prime time TV shows, dramas and mini-series.

Both his daughters grew up near Stuttgart where Fogarty established his own recording studio and headquartered his songwriting and production operation through most of the 2000s.

Born on a small farm near Toowoomba in the 60s Fogarty began writing songs at fifteen and has played 3000 live gigs in the interim.

Although the songwriting bug has never abated, Fogarty secured a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Queensland in 1992 and worked mainly as an investigative reporter, public relations manager and national editor for Thomson-Reuters.

“I wasn’t even aware you could be a full time musician and make an income through publishing, live performances and royalty payments,” Fogarty says.

“I was a kind of poor man’s Clark Kent,” he says.

“By day I was a mild-mannered reporter but by night I was writing heart-felt love songs and delicate chord progressions and playing them for people in dark little cafes.

“Hundreds of songs came into his head during his dreams.

“I would wake up every morning with a new song in my head,” he says.

“It had a way of sorting my brain and my emotions out and it certainly beat spending a fortune on psychotherapy.”

Fogarty kept writing songs in his spare time, playing festivals and showcases and working on his music until his girlfriend convinced him to go full-time with his music in September of 2000.

Fogarty’s songs were picked up by ABC Music publishing and received national radio airplay for his breakthrough album ‘Stagefright’.

His songwriting attracted the attention of the biggest music labels in the world – Universal Music in New York and Sony Music in Tokyo – as well as Constantin Film in Germany and Pipeline Entertainment Group in Nashville with whom he still collaborates.

Paul is a multi-instrumentalist equally at home on piano, lap-slide guitar, ukulele, harmonica and acoustic guitar, often switching instruments between songs throughout his shows.

Nashville music impresario Joe Lamont hailed Paul as ‘the quintessential singer-songwriter’ while festivals and agents in Europe have christened him ‘the wonder from down under’ and ‘a force of nature’.

Fogarty’s concert at Scotts Hub begins at 5.30pm on August 20.