Phil Coulter interview on Friday 11th Sept 2009When it comes to being a legend in the music industry there is none bigger in the Irish Music Industry then songwriter, producer, musician, arranger Phil Coulter. This week I had the pleasure of talking with Phil before his upcoming show in Cork Opera House on Sunday 13th Sept. I asked him about this show and how did it differ to other shows and he explained that it was an evening about the songs and songwriters which grew out of the success of the songwriter slot on his tv show Coulter & Company which has aired for the last three years. Its a relaxed approach to a live music show which he intends to take around the country on tour.
His guest on this show are the whose who of the songwriting world and starts with none other then Cork's own local singer songwriter Sinead Lohan from who hasn't toured in a few years and this is her first big public performance in that time. For those that don't remember Sinead first came to prominence thanks to the inclusion of her song "Sailing By" on the hugely successful "A Woman's Heart" collection. She has released two albums, Who Do You Think I Am in 1995, which scored several radio hits in Ireland, and No Mermaid in 1998, which enjoyed moderate success in Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S.. No Mermaid was released by Interscope Records after a bidding war between several major labels and included the hugely popular single "Whatever It Takes". "No Mermaid", the title track of the aforementioned album, was also featured in the movie Message in a Bottle. The song "No Mermaid" was also performed by Joan Baez on her 1997 release Gone from Danger, the 2009 reissue of which features a bonus disc containing live performances from 1997 of Baez and Lohan duets on Lohan's "No Mermaid" and "Who Do You Think I Am," and on Bob Dylan's "To Ramona." The band Nickel Creek covered her song "Out Of The Woods" on their 2000 Nickel Creek album. The song 'What Can Never Be' was used in an episode of Dawson's Creek called Northern Lights. The Canadian female vocal group Shaye recorded "No Mermaid" on their album The Bridge, which was released in 2003, and they may also be seen singing it on a Canadian TV show. Since the birth of her second child in January 2001 she has not appeared or released a new album. Her song "You're In My Love" did appear on the soundtrack to the film Goldfish Memory in 2003. In 2004, Lohan teamed up again with producer Malcolm Burn, who produced No Mermaid. Production of the new album was complete by January 2007.
Another guest is the well known Mick Hanley, another of our famous songwriters but just in case your wondering what did Mick writer well His biggest hit around the world would have been the song Past the Point of Rescue which Hal Ketchum recorded and The Dixie Chicks covered earning him several Gold Disks and several months in the American Billboard charts. He has been part of the Bothy Band , Moving Hearts and has worked with the cream of Irish traditional musicians, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Matt Mooloy (now with The Chieftains), Paddy Glackin, Noel Hill, Peter Brown and Declan Sinnott to name but a few. Phil says that his contrubition to the Irish music scene has been imense citing Past the Point of rescue as being one of the most played songs on american radio the year it came out.
I asked Phil was he looking forward to this gig and he replied "I am so looking forward to this gig, we have three very different artists who have never been on stage together before and may never be on stage again I look forward to Cork because the audience are great and the Cork people understand their music.
We spoke about where it all started for Phil and he said that writing in "Tin Pan Alley" was a great start but before that he started writing songs in his late teens then he wrote a song for the Capitol Showband "Fooling Time" which started him in his career, after that he says"I became unemployable in the normal sense I wanted to spend more time writing songs hence the move to Tin Pan Alley where I first became an arranger arranging songs for many great artists including The Victors and your old man" (meaning local singer Art Supple who happens to be my father ) From there he started writing more songs. Phil who has worked with many great international singers he has achieved world-wide recognition as a hit songwriter, notching up chart entries with a diverse list of acts from Elvis Presley to Waylon Jennings, from Bobby Vinton to The Bay City Rollers. His production credits include Van Morrison, Sinead O’Connor, Elvis Costello and Richard Harris, while in Ireland his successes have ranged from the Dubliners to Planxty, from Paddy Reilly to the Furey Brothers. He has performed on stage with everyone from James Galway and the London Symphony Orchestra to Nanci Griffith and The Blue Moon Orchestra, not to mention Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein and Quincy Jones.
With songs like Congratulations, Puppet on a string to a string of songs Phil Coulter will live on and remains a legend in the Irish Music Industry.
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