In 1966, while studying architecture at the Gloucestershire College of Art in Cheltenham, he formed Love to Mother with Al Fenn on guitar, Tom Bennison on bass and Mike Ketskemety on drums.
When Coppin, Fenn and March graduated from university, Decameron went fully professional and were signed by the Fingimigig Agency run by Jasper Carrott and John Starkey.
They also appeared on rare occasions using their alter-egos, The Magnificent Mercury Brothers, playing mostly covers of Beach Boys and Jan and Dean songs, featuring the rich vocal harmonies that Decameron were famous for.
Since then they have reformed for occasional one-off reunion gigs, usually with Mick Candler on drums, and recorded a live album, Afterwords, in 2001 in benefit of Coppin's wife, Gillian, who died from ovarian cancer just a few months later.
After three albums of original songs, Coppin found a rich vein of material when he decided to set poems written by famous Gloucestershire authors to music.
Coppin's first full album of Gloucestershire poems set to music, Forest and Vale and High Blue Hill, was premiered at the 1983 Cheltenham Literary Festival.
He has edited two poetry anthologies: Forest & Vale & High Blue Hill and Between the Severn and the Wye – poems from the border counties of England and Wales.