Phil Coulter set for Dunloy performance

It’s now twenty years since the distinctive sound of Tranquility, featuring Phil’s piano and orchestra, first seduced the whole of Ireland with its easy melodic charm, before going on to make believers around the world.

With record sales now counted in millions, as well as a Grammy nomination, several appearances in the White House and sold out international tours, it’s been quite a ride.

Not that Phil Coulter had been a stranger to success in the music biz prior to that. In the twenty years before Tranquility he had achieved world-wide recognition as a hit songwriter, with then partner Bill Martin, notching up chart entries with a diverse list of acts from Cliff Richard to Sandie Shaw, Elvis Presley to Waylon Jennings, from Bobby Vinton to The Bay City Rollers.

As a producer his credits are formidable and include icons like Van Morrison, Sinead O’Connor and Elvis Costello, classical greats like James Galway and one-of-a-kind’s like Richard Harris.

He has worked with legends of Irish music like The Dubliners and Planxty and has written at least four of the Great Irish Songs. - the classic ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ The Rugby anthem ‘Ireland’s Call’ and the haunting ‘Scorn Not His Simplicity’ and ‘Steal Away’.

As a writer he is as productive as ever and is currently riding the crest of yet another wave, with the U.S success of his project ‘Celtic Thunder’, having notched up three consecutive Number Ones in Billboard's World Music Charts and collected their 2008 World Album of the year award.

Phil will perform at Dunloy Parish Hall on Thursday, June 24. Special guest on the night will be Chloe Coyle, the winner of the All Ireland Talent Show.