Kevin Coyne
English musician (1944-2004)
Kevin Coyne (27 January 1944 – 2 December 2004) was an English musician, singer, composer, film-maker, and a writer of lyrics, stories and poems. He was critically acclaimed for his unorthodox style of blues-influenced guitar composition, the intense quality of his vocal delivery, and his lyrics describing injustice to the mentally ill. Musicians who have described themselves as Coyne fans include Sting and John Lydon. In the mid-1970s, prior to the formation of the Police, Coyne's band included guitarist Andy Summers. BBC disc jockey Andy Kershaw described Coyne as "a national treasure who keeps getting better" and as one of the great British blues voices.
Over many years Coyne produced the art work for many of his own album covers. His move to Germany, in the 1980s, saw his work on full-size paintings blossom in its own right.
Early days
Coyne was born in Derby, Derbyshire, England. As a teenager and young adult Coyne studied at the Joseph Wright School of Art from 1957 to 1961 and then studied graphics and painting at Derby School of Art from 1961 to 1965. There he met Nick Cudworth (piano, acoustic guitar).
“Kevin Coyne” enters the record as english musician (1944-2004). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kevin, Coyne and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Kevin Coyne” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kevin, Coyne and English provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q940448. VIAF identifies the subject as 113778956. The Library of Congress control number is nr92001885. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 2004, 1957 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kevin Coyne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.