After four decades of performing and composing, Phil Coulter still talks as if he is new to the business. Not even personal tragedy and loss could permanently dampen his enthusiasm for music. Only Coulter's wife, Geraldine and his children come first in his heart and it is not difficult to imagine that it is his love of family that most influences his music. By Noel Welch

AS IRELAND'S AMBASSADOR OF MUSIC, Phil Coulter can look back on 35 years in the business with a great deal of satisfaction of what he's achieved. He has done coast-to-coast tours of the States; four sell-out concerts in New York's Carnegie Hall; three personal invitations from former US President Bill Clinton to perform at the White House and playing live to 600,000 outdoors on Capitol Hill in Washington DC with the National Symphony Orchestra. A special memory for Phil was marching at the head of the St Patrick's Day Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue with Mayor Giuliani and sharing the bill with Gregory Peck at St Patrick's Cathedral. For Phil Coulter, these memories are so vivid, so special, cherished and never to be forgotten.

His name and songs have been linked to everyone from Elvis Presley, to the Bay City Rollers and from Sinead O'Connor to Elvis Costello. His career as a first rate songwriter, pianist and composer has spanned three decades and his catalogue of lush soundscapes includes more than thirteen albums.

Phil was looking relaxed, dressed in a beige colored twopiece suit, blue opened-neck shirt and sipping a cup of coffee reminiscing about the past and looking ahead to more concerts. Preparing for his concerts at the Cork Opera House, Ireland, before jetting to New York as part of his busy tour itinerary. "We have been building up a following in the US very gradually and very steadily over the last twelve years, touring there every 18 months or so", Coulter says, with sold-out per formances in prestigious and major market venues like the 4,000-seat Chicago Theatre, Symphony Hall in Boston and Carnegie Hall in New York.

As there have been highs in Phil Coulter's life, they have also been lows. The death of his brother was only one of a series of tragedies in his personal life. In a three-year period in the early 1980s, his brother drowned in Lough Swilly, Northern Ireland while wind-surfing, his social worker sister was killed by an unbalanced client and his father died. "Sometimes in the darkest of hours you tell yourself: If I can get through this, I can get through anything." Ultimately, however, these things have helped him to take a longer view. "It would take a lot more now for me to reach that pit of despair.

Coulter is the son of a Catholic RUC police constable and feels that his roots are "about as working-class as you're going to get." The Coulters lived in a simple two-up, two-down terrace house in Derry, Northern Ireland. The most valuable and valued piece of furniture was the Challen upright piano. The house was always full of music. His father played the fiddle, while his mother played the piano. "From them I learned that love of just playing and the pure joy of music," he says.

IF YOU WEREN'T A MUSICIAN, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN?
Definitely a chef. My eldest son Philip, aged 26, from my first marriage, is a chef in Sydney, Australia. He trained at the world-renowned cooking school at Ballymaloe House in Co. Cork. He's worked in London, the States and the Far East. I envy him. He's doing what he loves to do. I think some of my family members were disappointed that I didn't persuade him into the music business. I would have gone into the food industry if the music didn't work out. I've got lots of friends in the food business."

WHAT DO YOU HOPE FOR YOUR CHILDREN?
I've got six children from my second marriage. I've very conscious that they have got to live their own lives. They've got to find things in life that fulfills them; not what fulfills me. Sure, if I'm doing one of my flagship concerts in Carnegie Hall with the full orchestra it would be nice to think that my son would be playing second keyboard, my daughter would be leading the string section and another son would be playing the drums. It would be great for ME, but not great for them. I've seen people trying to relive their lives through their children; that's dangerous. Its makes for unhappy children.

YOU'VE WRITTEN HUNDREDS OF SONGS, BUT IS THERE A SONG THAT WAS DIFFICULT TO WRITE AND ONE THAT CAME EASY?
The song that I spent longest writing was The Town I Love So Well. I had a problem with the melody, and it took actually more than a year to work the lyric. Making sure that each word was carefully chosen. Given the volatility of the situation of the North of Ireland at that stage, one wrong word either way would just tip the song over to being another rebel number. Christ, that's the last thing we need is another rebel song. So the language of that had to be very carefully chosen. That's the song that I would have worked hardest at. The song that came easiest, I think, once I got the title, was Congraflllations, sung by Cliff Richard in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest. Once that title fell into place, the song just wrote itself. I was bitterly disappointed that it didn't win. It came second to the Spanish entry, beaten by just one point.

YOUR FIRST BREAKTHROUGH INTERNATIONALLY CAME FROM THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST?
Yes, I wrote the winning song in 1967 for Sandie Shaw, called Puppet on a String. We did a serious bit of research on past winners which were big broad lyrical melodies and came up with a song that was catchy. There were cute novelty songs. The viewing audiences today for the Eurovision Song Contest has certainly twiddled. It's no longer really relevant to the music and record industry. Back in the early days when I had my shot, at least you were writing songs for hit performers. Now it's a type of talent contest. There hasn't been a big hit song come out of the Eurovision since Abba.

One of the biggest thrills of my life came in 1972 when My Boy, which I penned, became an international smash hit for Elvis Presley.

YOU'VE RECENTLY COMPLETED YOUR LATEST ALBUM, WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?
This album is different in many ways to my previous albums. Different primarily because like my latest concert, it's focused around the songs. So it's my first ever vocal album. I've had fifteen instrumental albums. This is 100 per cent vocal. One song on the album is a duet with Ronan Keating of Boyzone, a new version of The Town I Love So Well. I'll be doing something quite new that hasn't been attempted before. I'm bringing out a limited edition pack of the CD with the songbook that contains all of the songs, all the words. I've had many requests over the years for the words or chords of some of my material. It's a novel idea and I hope that it goes well.

One of my most rewarding collaborations in recent years was with the incomparable James Galway. Our album Legends was in the US charts for most of 1998. We repeated that success the following year with Winter's Crossing. The success of the albums led to us touring the US together, performing at Carnegie Hall, St Patrick's Cathedral in New York, The White House and The Nobel Peace Awards.

CAN ANY OF YOUR CHILDREN PLAY AN MUSICAL INSTRUMENT?
A few have taken guitar lessons of their own choosing. It's very early days yet to see if any of them follow me into the music business. As I keep telling parents that come back stage, where you have a mother and father and their mother and father, and a couple of kids who play the piano. Can you encourage the young ones to keep at the piano! You've got to remember this that it's given to very few musicians to make a living from music; that's a very small percentage. Music is something that enriches your life. If my kids grow up with an appreciation of music and if they can play something at a party with half a dozen chords, that's great. At home the kids listen to music from Brimey Spears, Westlife and the likes; one of the younger ones came across one of my wife's CDs and to our amazement, the eight-year-old was listening to her mother's record.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR WIFE GERALDINE?
I was asked to write a song and to find an artist to represent Luxembourg for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. I saw dozens of singers, but nobody that I felt had anything fresh to bring to the contest. While I was at home in Ireland watching TV, I saw a commercial for Guinness and there was this blonde singer set in a bar situation. She was very attractive and I liked the sound of her voice. I only discovered later that she was miming to someone else's voice. I made inquiries to who she was and it was love at first sight. So that is how we first met.

DID YOU AND GERALDINE EVER DO A SONG TOGETHER?
No, only in private. I do a cruise every year for the past five or six years, in January. It's the one time of the year when I can combine my work and my family. On the last night of the cruise, in a very relaxed mood, sailing in the Caribbean, we sing a song together. My kids are also with us, and it's a novelty for other passengers to see kids on board, because there's not too many families would bring six kids on a cruise with them. On the last night there's always a farewell party and Geraldine and the kids join me in singing Steal Away.

Phil Coulter has proven to be both an artist and a survivor-attributes that have much in common. To create, one has to search the heart for the truth and it is the pain of sorrow that bests rends the heart open for introspection.