Phil Oakwood

Member

• Genre: Songwriter
• Email: phil@themayburys.co.uk
• Website: www.philmaybury.co.uk
• Representation:
  • 35 High Street
  • Clayton West
  • Huddersfield
  • 0845 467 4667

Biography

Phil is a 55 year old songwriter from a small village between Huddersfield, Wakefield and Barnsley in the Yorkshire Pennines.

He has always had a keen interest in contemporary music and began playing the guitar as a teenager at the school folk club. Then in the late seventies he formed the acoustic group Manuscript, which performed at various venues around West Yorkshire, and had a complete programme devoted to them on local radio. Along with another member of the group, he secured a contract to record two songs for children’s programmes on local radio.

His musical style originated in folk and country, later moving into folk-rock and pop, and more recently into blues. He lists his biggest songwriting influences as being Lennon & McCartney, Ralph McTell, Chris de Burgh, Neil Diamond, Justin Hayward, David Gray and Henry Preistman of the Christians. His musical interest spans a broad area from traditional folk through new age and the borders of blues and jazz, into rock and pop.

Phil began songwriting as a teenager, and has continued until the present, though they were never performed, submitted to publishers or entered into competitions. His first three submissions to the UK Songwriting Contest 2009: Another Man, Mr Incomplete and Ted the Gardener all reached the semi-finals in this first year of submitting.

In 2010, out of his 14 entries for the contest, four reached the semi-finals and nine were awarded a certificate of commendation. One of his songs, Wise Old Owl (contemporary folk), was semi-finalist in two categories – Folk/Country and Lyrics, another Gaslamp (contemporar folk) was semifinalist in Folk/Country and commended in Lyrics, and other songs also succeeded in the Rock/Indie, Adult Contemporary and Jazz/Blues categories.

For almost ten years, Phil’s vocals have been out of action because of a severe reaction to asthma inhalers, but once the cause was discovered, Phil began rehabilitating his voice. “It’s not quite back to normal,” he explained, “But by Autumn 2010 I hope to be fit for live performances once again.” To give his voice the professional treatment, Phil has now started working with a Wakefield-based voice coach.