Colin Harper

For the footballer with the same name, see Colin Harper (footballer).

Colin Harper (born 1968) is an Irish music journalist. He was born in Belfast and graduated in 1989 from Queen's University, Belfast. As a writer for the Belfast "Irish News" he wrote unsiged features on local bands and famous bands on tour. During the mid-nineties he had articles published in popular music magazines such as Q and Mojo.He also contributed both theatre and music reviews to The Irish Times.

He became a regular witer of liner notes for compilations of folk, acoustic and prog-rock artists appearing on record labels including Windsong, Demon, Castle, Hux and Snapper. His long time admiration of Bert Jansch led to his biography of Jansch "Dazzling Stranger" (its title taken from a song by Alan Tunbridge) This was launched at the Edinburgh Book Festival. He followed this up by being the driving force behind the tribute album "People On The Highway: A Bert Jansch Encomium" (2000). He also contributed the Jansch documentary "Dreamweaver" on Channel 4 in 2000.

In 2003 he took a post as librarian at a Belfast music college, but continued to work as a journalist, mainly for Mojo and "Record Collector", until 2007. In support of the charity World Wide Fund for Nature he organised two benefit compilation albums - "The Wildlife Album" (2004) and "Live In Hope: The Wildlife Album 2" (2005). His other annotated CD compilations include the collected works of Atomic Rooster and Andy Roberts. 'Freedom & The Dream Penguin', a collection of his songs - fronted by guest vocalists including Judy Dyble, Alison O'Donnell, Janet Holmes, Paul Casey and Brian Houston - was released in 2008, credited to The Field Mouse Conspiracy.

Bibliography

• "Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival" (2000)
• "Seaside Rock" (2003)
• "Irish folk, Trad and Blues: A Secret History" (2004)

External references

• http://www.colin-harper.com/
• http://www.getreadytorock.com/best_of_2006b.htm

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Name	Harper, Colin
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Date of birth	1968
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