Phil Colclough

Phil Colclough (born 1940) is an English contemporary folk singer and songwriter. His best known works, cowritten with his wife, June Colclough (born 1941, died 12 October 2004), are "Song for Ireland" and "The Call and the Answer".

June and Phil Colclough both came from North Staffordshire, England, and both had careers in education. Phil had been a navigator in the Merchant Navy,^[1] which provided source material for some of his songs. The Colcloughs founded the first folk music club in Stoke-on-Trent in 1960. In 1966, they moved to London, where they were members of the Critics group led by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger; they eventually left the group due to bitter disputes stemming from MacColl's "authoritarian tendencies".^[2] In the 1970s, the Colcloughs returned to North Staffordshire, where they produced a folk music radio program for BBC Radio Stoke.

"Song for Ireland"^[3] was inspired by a trip the Colcloughs took to the Dingle Peninsula. Described as a "modern classic",^[4] it has been recorded by numerous artists, including Dick Gaughan, Mary Black, and The Dubliners.

Discography

Players from a Drama (1992)

Notes

^ Woods 1983, p. 383.
^ Harker, Ben (2007), Class act: the cultural and political life of Ewan Maccoll, Pluto Press, p. 209, ISBN 978-0745321653 .
^ Woods 1983, pp. 349–350.
^ Sawyers, June Skinner (2001), Celtic music: a complete guide, Da Capo Press, p. 173, ISBN 978-0306810077 .

References

Woods, Frederick (1983), The Oxford book of English traditional verse, Oxford Books of Verse, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0192141323 .
"Origin: Song for Ireland (Phil and June Colclough)". The Mudcat Café. http://supersearch.mudcat.org/thread_pf.cfm?threadid=105550. Retrieved 26 June 2011.

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Name	Colclough, Phil
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Date of birth	1940
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