Colin Lester Irwin (19 May 1951 – 3 November 2022) was a British music journalist.
Biography
He was born in
Chertsey
Chertsey is a town in the Borough of Runnymede, Surrey, England, south-west of central London. It grew up round Chertsey Abbey, founded in 666 CE, and gained a market charter from Henry I. A bridge across the River Thames first appeared in ...
,
Surrey, England, and attended
Strode's Grammar School in
Egham
Egham ( ) is a university town in the Borough of Runnymede in Surrey, England, approximately west of central London. First settled in the Bronze Age, the town was under the control of Chertsey Abbey for much of the Middle Ages. In 1215, Magn ...
. He studied journalism at
Guildford College before working at the ''Slough Evening Mail'', and becoming a patron of folk clubs from the late 1960s. He started writing on a freelance basis for music magazines before joining ''
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
'' in 1974, writing mainly about British
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
and interviewing many of the notable performers of the period. He later became features editor and then assistant editor at ''Melody Maker'', leaving in summer 1987 as the magazine moved in a different direction. He became editor of the
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describ ...
magazine ''
Number One
Number One most commonly refers to:
* 1 (number)
Number One, No. 1, or #1 may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''Number 1'' (Big Bang album), and the title song
* ''No. 1'' (BoA album), and the title song
* ''No.1'' (EP), by CLC
* ''n.1' ...
'' in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later, he worked on a freelance basis for magazines including ''
Q'' and ''
Mojo'', as well as magazines covering sport and travel.
[
He reviewed music for '']The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'', ''Mojo'', ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...
'', ''fRoots
''fRoots'' (pronounced "eff-Roots", originally ''Folk Roots'') was a specialist music magazine published in the UK between 1979 and 2019. It specialised in folk and world music, and featured regular compilation downloadable albums, with occa ...
'' and Spiral Earth
Spiral Earth is an online news channel and website, based in Cambridgeshire, England. It covers folk music, roots music and the alternative music scene in the United Kingdom. It is edited by Iain Hazlewood, who founded Spiral Earth in 2004.
Sp ...
and was a Mercury Music Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...
judge. He also wrote books, starting with biographies of Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals and lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar and backing vocals) and Pick Withers (drums and pe ...
(1994) and Abba
ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The grou ...
(with Tony Calder and Andrew Loog Oldham
Andrew Loog Oldham (born 29 January 1944) is an English record producer, talent manager, impresario and author. He was manager and producer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 to 1967, and was noted for his flamboyant style.
Early life
Loog Oldha ...
, 1996). His 2003 book ''In Search of the Craic'' details a comic journey around Ireland seeking out pub music sessions, and became a best-seller in Ireland. Subsequent books were ''In Search of Albion'' (2005), a similarly light-hearted journey around English traditions and rituals, and ''Sing When You're Winning'' (2006), about the history and culture of terrace songs at football matches. His other books included biographies of Neil Young
Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fu ...
, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...
, and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
.[
Irwin presented music programmes on ]BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content ...
. His play ''The Corridor'' has been performed in Surrey and Yorkshire. Other plays he wrote which have been performed on stage in different parts of the country include ''One of Us Is Lying'', ''When Barry Met Cally'' and ''I Am the Way''. In 2017, his theatrical music show, ''She Moved Through the Fair: The Legend of Margaret Barry'', co-written with Irish singer Mary McPartlan
Mary McPartlan (8 January 1955 – 6 April 2020) was a traditional Irish singer and musician as well as a music director and producer.
Biography
Mary McPartlan was born in 1955 in Drumkeeran, County Leitrim. She founded folk duo Calypso i ...
, debuted at Glasgow's Tron Theatre as part of the Celtic Connections festival.
Irwin died from a suspected heart attack on 3 November 2022, at the age of 71.
Bibliography
* ''Dire Straits'' (Orion Books, 1994)
* ''Abba: The Name of the Game'' (with Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder) (Pan, 1996)
* ''The Rough Guide to World Music'' (contributor)
* ''In Search of the Craic: One Man's Pub Crawl Through Irish Music'' (2004)
* ''In Search of Albion: From Cornwall to Cumbria – A Ride Through England's Hidden Soul'' (2005)
* ''Sing When You're Winning: Search for the Soul of Football'' (2006)
* ''Legendary Sessions: Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited'' (2007)
* ''Neil Young: A Life in Pictures'' (2012)
* ''Leonard Cohen: Still the Man'' (2015)
Albums compiled by Colin Irwin
* ''The Very Best of Celtic'' (Various artists) (2004)
References
External links
Profile
at ''Rock's Back Pages''
1951 births
2022 deaths
British magazine editors
English music journalists
The Guardian journalists
Melody Maker writers
Mojo (magazine) people
People from Chertsey
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