Phil Coulter

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Phil Coulter bigraphy, stories - Irish musician, songwriter and record producer

Phil Coulter : biography

19 February 1942 –

Phil Coulter (born 19 February 1942) is an Irish musician, songwriter and record producer. He was awarded the Gold Badge from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in October 2009.

Coulter has amassed 23 platinum discs, 39 gold discs, 52 silver discs, two Grand Prix Eurovision awards; five Ivor Novello Awards, which includes Songwriter of the Year; three American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards; a Grammy Nomination; a Meteor Award, a National Entertainment Award and a Rose d’or d’Antibes. He is one of the biggest record sellers in his native land.

Politics

In 2002, Coulter was encouraged by the Save the Swilly organisation to run for Dáil in order to protect Lough Swilly from aquacultural destruction. After some deliberation, he concluded that work and family commitments would not allow him the time necessary to fill the political position. Around that time, Coulter’s brother died in a drowning incident in Ireland, which also caused Phil to retreat from the music industry for some time.

Sport

Coulter is a former president of Derry City Football Club 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.

In 1995, the Irish Rugby Football Union commissioned 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", which is played alongside, and in some cases instead of, "Amhrán na bhFiann". As well as being used by both the Ireland national rugby union team and the junior national teams, "Ireland’s Call" has since also been adopted by the Ireland’s national hockey, cricket and rugby league teams.

Songwriting partnership with Bill Martin

In 1965, he met Bill Martin and the two became established as a successful songwriting team that lasted more than ten years (Martin for the lyrics, Coulter for the melody). They wrote Sandie Shaw’s 1967 Eurovision-winning entry, "Puppet on a String", which would go on to become an international hit with more than 100 cover versions. They had a second hit the next year with a song for Cliff Richard called "Congratulations", which finished second at Eurovision. In a weird footnote to this achievement, in 2008 a Spanish documentary alleged that Cliff Richard had been robbed of victory after General Francisco Franco fixed the vote.The Irish Times, , May 6, 2008. Notwithstanding, the person shown making the claim in the documentary, José María Íñigo, responded afterwards that his words had been taken out of context, saying that the channel that produced the documentary, laSexta, who was the promoter of the Spanish representative that year, Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, had manipulated his words to help promote their candidate. He said: "if there had been such a manipulation, it would have been for a different artist who had been closer to the regime". Seven years later, Coulter was back on the Eurovision stage when he co-wrote, together with Pierre Cour, the song "Toi" for Luxembourg: the song, which was performed by Coulter’s future wife Geraldine, came fifth in Stockholm. Coulter and Martin also wrote "Shine It On", which finished third in the 1978 heat of A Song for Europe, performed by the Glaswegian performer Christian.

Between 1967 and 1976, they had four No. 1 hits in the UK: "Puppet on a String", "Congratulations", "Back Home" and "Forever and Ever". There were also numerous Top 10 hits including the Bay City Rollers’ "Shang-A-Lang", "Fancy Pants" by the glam rock band Kenny, "Requiem" by the Scottish pop group Slik, and "Surround Yourself with Sorrow" by Cilla Black. In 1975, Martin and Coulter were joint recipients of an Ivor Novello Award for ‘Songwriter of the Year’.