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Phil Coulter (born 19 February 1942) is an Irish songwriter, performer and music producer from Northern Ireland. With his writing partner Bill Martin he penned numerous hit songs for a variety of popular singers in the 1960s and 70s, and in the 1980s scored major successes performing his own material. He continues to be a popular performer in his native country and around the world. Image File history File links Acap. ... [[Media:Italic text]]{| style=float:right; |- | |- | |} is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics to songs, the musical composition or melody to songs, or both. ... The performing arts include theater, motion pictures, drama, comedy, music, dance, opera, magic and the marching arts, such as brass bands, etc. ... In the music industry, record producer designates a person responsible for completing a master recording so that it is fit for release. ... Northern Ireland (Irish: ) is a part of the United Kingdom lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km², about a sixth of the islands total area). ... Bill Martin (born William Wylie Macpherson, 9 November 1938, Govan, Glasgow) is a Scottish songwriter, music publisher and impresario. ...

Son of a policeman in a divided town

Coulter is from Derry,^[1] the second largest city in Northern Ireland. The two names attributed to the city have considerable significance in a divided region, and Coulter's family was acutely aware of this point of "difference", if only because his father was a policeman. For other places with similar names, see Derry (disambiguation) and Londonderry (disambiguation). ... Northern Ireland (Irish: ) is a part of the United Kingdom lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km², about a sixth of the islands total area). ... The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. ...

One of Phil Coulter's most popular songs, "The Town I Loved So Well", deals with the embattled city of his youth, filled with "that damned barbed wire" during The Troubles. For other uses, see Troubles (disambiguation) and Trouble. ...

Coulter's father, also called Phil, encouraged music in the house. He played the fiddle while the younger Coulter's mother played the upright piano — a Challen piano, which the son recalls was "the most important piece of furniture in the house".

Education

Coulter spent his secondary school years at St. Columb's College, whose other past pupils include playwright Brian Friel, Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, writer and literature professor Seamus Deane, author and military historian Richard Doherty, and Nobel Peace Laureate John Hume. St. ... Brian Friel (born January 9, 1929) is a playwright and director from Northern Ireland. ... Nobel Prize in Literature medal. ... Seamus Justin Heaney (IPA: //) (born 13 April 1939) is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer from County derry, Northern Ireland. ... Born to a Catholic nationalist family in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1940, Seamus Deane is a poet, critic and novelist. ... Richard Doherty is a County Londonderry-born military historian and author, educated at St. ... Lester B. Pearson after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is the name of one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. ... John Hume. ...

Beginnings of a career in music

He later studied music at the Queen's University of Belfast (QUB), but did not complete his degree. He started his first band there, playing early rock and roll music and recording two songs for a 'Rag Day' release. Coulter and a group of friends also started a Glee Club, and Coulter was playing the piano for eight hundred students on one memorable evening when the Beatles were performing in a nearby Belfast cinema, the Ritz. Two students were sent to talk to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, to invite them to join the Glee Club. But in the end they sent the headline performer on the tour, Helen Shapiro, one of whose songs was No. 1 in the United Kingdom at that time. The Queens University of Belfast (QUB) is a university in Belfast, Northern Ireland; the university is often called Queens University Belfast. ... The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... This article is about the city in Northern Ireland. ... John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980), (born John Winston Lennon, known as John Ono Lennon) was an iconic English 20th century rock and roll songwriter and singer, best known as the founding member of The Beatles. ... Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who first gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. ... Helen Shapiro (born 28 September 1946) is an English singer. ...

By 1964, his final year at university, Coulter had already written a couple of hit songs in Ireland and he moved to London, where his first job was as an arranger/songwriter with a music publisher in Denmark Street, London's Tin Pan Alley. This lasted a few years but was not entirely satisfying. Denmark Street is a short narrow road in central London, notable for its connections with British popular music, and is known as the British Tin Pan Alley. ... Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. ...

Songwriting partnership with Bill Martin

In the late 1960s, he formed a writing partnership with Bill Martin and from this union several memorable songs would emerge. They wrote Sandie Shaw's Eurovision Song Contest winning entry, "Puppet on a String" (1967), which went on to become an international hit with more than 100 cover versions. They had another hit in 1968 in a song for Cliff Richard called "Congratulations". They had a further attempt at the contest in 1975, when together with Pierre Cour they wrote Toi for Luxembourg, which placed 5th in Stockholm when performed by Coulter's future wife Geraldine. They also finished 3rd in the 1978 UK heat A Song for Europe with their entry Let It Shine performed by Christian. The Coulter-Martin partnership lasted more than fifteen years. During this time the team wrote for Dana, Richard Harris, Elvis Presley ("My Boy"), and the Bay City Rollers, for whom the team wrote nearly all of the band's hits. Coulter and Martin were also among several British musicians who contributed incidental music to the famous 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, the others including Syd Dale, Johnny Pearson and Johnny Hawksworth. Bill Martin (born William Wylie Macpherson, 9 November 1938, Govan, Glasgow) is a Scottish songwriter, music publisher and impresario. ... Sandie Shaw, born Sandra Ann Goodrich on February 26, 1947 at Dagenham, United Kingdom, was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. ... The modern logo was introduced for the 2004 Contest (in Istanbul) to create a consistent visual identity. ... Album artwork. ... Sir Cliff Richard OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb on 14 October 1940) is an English singer, actor and businessman. ... Congratulations, song performed by Cliff Richard as the UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968. ... Pierre Cour (1924 - 1997) was a French songwriter who wrote songs for several generations of artists. ... Toi is a town of about 5000 people located on the western shore of the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. ... For other uses, see Stockholm (disambiguation). ... Geraldine is the name of several places: Geraldine, New Zealand Two towns in the United States: Geraldine, Alabama Geraldine, Montana This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A Song for Europe can mean: * A former name of the British national pre-selection competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is currently called Making Your Mind Up. ... Let It Shine was the last single released from Agnethas third english solo-album I Stand Alone. ... For other uses, see Christian (disambiguation). ... Dana Rosemary Scallon, better known as Dana (born Rosemary Brown on 30 August 1951 in Islington, London), is a Contemporary Catholic music singer, songwriter and former politician. ... Richard St. ... Elvis Aron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often known simply as Elvis and also called The King of Rock n Roll or simply The King, was an American singer, musician and actor. ... The Bay City Rollers were a Scottish Pop/rock band of the 1970s. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... Spider-Man swinging around his hometown, New York City. ... Syd Dale (courtesy of Amphonic Music) Syd Dale (May 20, 1924 – August 15, 1994) was born in York, England. ... Johnny Pearson (born June 18, 1925) is a British composer and pianist. ... Johnny Hawksworth is a British musician and composer, who has lived and worked in Australia since 1984. ...

Sideman and producer

Coulter also moonlighted as a piano player and worked with such artists as Van Morrison (who gave him the 'Cool Filter' nickname), Tom Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Rolling Stones. He became friends with Billy Connolly, the Scottish performer, and in the 1970s became deeply interested in Irish music, the music of his youth. George Ivan Morrison OBE (generally known as Van Morrison) (born August 31, 1945) is a singer-songwriter from Belfast, Northern Ireland. ... For other uses, see Tom Jones (disambiguation). ... Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935), also known by the nickname The Killer, is an American rock and roll and country music singer, songwriter, and pianist. ... This article is about the rock band. ... William Billy Connolly, CBE, (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter, and actor. ...

He produced three ground-breaking albums with Planxty, which had a seminal influence on modern Irish music, though the albums did not earn the artists much money. Christy Moore wrote: "He gave us a shite contract and we signed everything away. All that said, thirty years on, this album sounds good. He produced it well and ... he did have the foresight and wherewithal to record the band at a time when no one else was listening".^[2] Planxty was an Irish folk music band formed in the 1970s by Christy Moore, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine (a founder of the Irish mid-sixties group Sweeneys Men), and Liam OFlynn (piper). ... Christopher Andrew Christy Moore (born on May 7, 1945, in Newbridge, County Kildare) is a very popular Irish folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. ...

He also wrote most of the big hits for not only the Bay City Rollers, but Kenny and Slik among others during the teenybop boom of the 1970s and even appeared as a production credit on "Automatic Lover" by Dee D. Jackson. Kenny was a mid-1970s pop and glam rock band. ... Slik were a Scottish pop band of the mid-70s, following in the footsteps of the Bay City Rollers. ... Dee D. Jackson (born Deirdre Elaine Cozier in Oxford, England July 15, 1954) is a British-born musician and singer. ...

Going solo

In 1984 he released a solo instrumental album called Classic Tranquility that featured beloved Irish tunes. It was a national sensation. His follow-up, Sea of Tranquility, did even better, becoming the second-best selling album of all time in Ireland.^{[citation needed]} He moved from London back to Ireland, where he set up a music room and office in his house in Bray, south of Dublin. He continued to record and perform around the world, notably at the White House on Saint Patrick's Day. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Dublin city centre at night WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Statistics Province: Leinster County: Dáil Éireann: Dublin Central, Dublin North Central, Dublin North East, Dublin North West, Dublin South Central, Dublin South East European Parliament: Dublin Dialling Code: +353 1 Postal District(s): D1-24, D6W Area: 114. ... For other uses, see White House (disambiguation). ... St. ...

In 1995 the Irish Rugby Football Union asked Coulter to write a politically neutral anthem for the Ireland national rugby union team, which represents both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The result was "Ireland's Call". At matches played in the Republic, both "Amhrán na bhFiann" (as the anthem of the host nation) and "Ireland's Call" (as the anthem of the home team) are sung. Elsewhere, "Ireland's Call" is the only anthem used. The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is the body managing rugby football in Ireland. ... First international England 7 - 0 Ireland (15 February 1875) Largest win United States 3 - 83 Ireland (10 June , 2000) Worst defeat New Zealand 59 - 6 Ireland (6 June 1992) World Cup Appearances 5 (First in 1987) Best result Quarter Finals, 1987, 1991, 1995, 2003, 2007 The Ireland rugby union team... Irelands Call is a song commissioned by the Irish Rugby Football Union for use at international rugby union fixtures featuring the Irish rugby union team. ... Amhrán na bhFiann (IPA: ) is the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland. ...

Coulter's official website notes that he has some 23 platinum records, thirty-nine gold and fifty-two silver albums. He also keeps one of the walls of his office blank, "to remind me that there’s still room for a lot more." It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with RIAA certification. ...

Sport

Coulter is a former president of Derry City F.C. and is known to be a supporter of the club, having attempted to help the club with its financial problems in the early 2000s. He has also helped Derry City's local rivals, Finn Harps, in their time of need. Derry City F.C. are an Irish football club based in the city of Derry. ... Finn Harps FC is a Irish football club playing in the Football League of Ireland. ...

External links

• Official Site

Notes