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Interview
by Totem Kopf
6-12-2004
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| Kevin Coyne could have been Jim Morrison |
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Kevin Coyne RIP
Profilic artist passes on
Kevin Coyne, singer-songwriter, guitarist, painter, poet and writer - a formidable talent, died in Nuremberg, Germany, on 2 December 2004. Over 35 albums his haunting singing style (somewhere between Roger Chapman of Family and Joe Cocker), his blues-infused open-tuned guitar playing and his intense live performances where he never played a song the same way twice, earned him a dedicated following.
Coyne, born in 1944, during the Sixties attended the local art college and played in a succession of groups around his native Derby before moving to Lancashire to work as a therapist in a mental hospital, teaching art and music to the patients.
After moving to London in 1968, work as a drug counsellor/social worker didn’t interfere with playing music with Dave Clague (gtr). Coyne-Clague duo signed to John Peel’s Dandelion label but after two singles evolved into five-piece Siren that cut two LPs: ‘Siren’ (‘69) and ‘Strange Locomotion’ (‘71).
Following the death of Jim Morrison ('71), the three surviving members canvassed Coyne but he turned them down. Instead, he went solo, releasing début ‘Case History’ on Dandelion in 1972; he then became the second signee to Richard Branson's Virgin Records in 1973.
Coyne's double set ‘Marjory Razorblade’ was released a few weeks after Mike Oldfield's ‘Tubular Bells’ and got overshadowed by the groundbreaking effort. After collaborating with Dagmar Krause on ‘Babble’ in 1980, Coyne embraced the advent of punk in 1980 by recording ‘Sanity Stomp’ with the Ruts. In 1985, he left England for a short tour of Germany and simply stayed there.
The new millennium saw Kevin Coyne working with his son Robert on the albums ‘Room Full of Fools’ (2000) and ‘Carnival’ (2002). He became a prolific painter, exhibiting all over Germany, published two collections of short stories, ‘The Party Dress’ (1990) and ‘Show Business’ (1993), and wrote an opera about Syd Barrett, as well as collaborating with the British singer and guitarist Brendan Croker on the bluesy album ‘Life is Almost Wonderful’ in 2002.
Totem Kopf
6-12-2004
Kevin Coyne: b. 27 January 1944 - d. 02 December 2004
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