Cloudburst                 Photo by Ken Irvin

After recording Jan Tregeagle with Phil Beer with RA Records in Torquay, Colin began writing in a more commercial and contempory style of folk music, following the steps of Donovan and Johnathan Kelly, Cloudburst was inspired by his visit to Canada where he met The Flower Girl on the corner of Bloor and Bay in Toronto, it took just a few minutes to write the first song for his solo album as Phil had decided to move to Brighton and seek his own fortune, this was recorded in a barn in the heart of the Devon countryside on a 4 track Tascam, bouncing tracks to allow more overlays and vocal work helped out by his friends to produce what is regarded as a highly collectable peice of work for it's genre. Flower Girl has been recorded by a number of artists throughout the UK and someone was heard performing it live at an open mic club 30 years since it was written which is testiment to the quality of the song.

Colin wrote a follow up album called After the Storm with his new band The Collection, playing the southern part of the UK, they were a highly succesful band reaching the finals of the Melody Maker Music Awards in the late seventies (it was a big deal at that time) the band included Dave Eustace, (see The Boys From Melbourne Street) Olly Dowlan and Chris Billings the album never made it to the mastering stage but a track called Never Ending Road was picked up by A & R from RCA Music and was recorded as a single at Woodstock Studios in Oxfordshire, this track features B J Cole on pedal steel and backing musicians from the Frank Yonko Band and released in Europe,the remastered CD has the single plus Slowly Going Crazy from the follow up album and also an ommitted track from Cloudburst called Lady Moonshine.

The Vinyl copies are now rare collectables and the hand drawn front cover artwork by artist Paul O'Brian (deceased) was his last known piece of work before he passed away shortly after the album was released by Tabitha Records.

Colin continued to work as a solo artist but eventually teamed up with Chris Billings (slide guitar on "A Walk in the Park" album) and went off touring again as a duo doing mostly original material which has never been recorded and the odd cover songs to keep everyone happy (ish), Chris moved on to do his own solo work and teamed up with a little known guitarist called John James and they played some very clever ragtime and did an album.

It was time for a change and a break and Colin learned to play the mandolin and joined "The Concert Boys" playing very fast Bluegrass, this featured Ron Joyce on Banjo, Pedal Steel, Guitar and vocals, (Ron was very talented) Trev Lloyd on Guitar and vocals, John Bickford on Fiddle and vocals (see Cloudburst) and Colin on M andolin and vocals they worked for 2-3 years, played fast and had a load of fun (photo on it's way) Concert Boys in Rougemont Park open air music festival, it was great.

More Country Rock and Bluegrass with The Flying Ducks featured Steve Ewart, Dick Ellis (now very famous harmonica player) Jack on Bass, Paul Cox on Fiddle ( "Songs from the Heart") and Colin on Mandolin and guitar and finally "Easy Pickins"  Steve, Paul and Colin became a trio of close 3 part harmonies and fast frantic playing, after 2 years they were exhausted and it was time out for Bluegrass.

Then Dave came back from America minus his missus and "Desperate Measures" was formed