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4 unusual facts about Phil Tanner


Maud Karpeles

Once the folk singer Phil Tanner was discovered in Gower, Wales, Karpeles made sure that he was recorded.

Phil Tanner

In 1976, he was remembered in a BBC Radio 4 tribute by the Welsh radio broadcaster Wynford Vaughan-Thomas recalling "the voice of the sanest, happiest, kindest eccentric I ever knew, the voice of Phil Tanner, the Gower Nightingale".

The editor of one reissue, the eminent folklorist Alan Lomax wrote: "When Phil died, England lost her best traditional singer".

Renowned locally as "the Gower Nightingale", he reached a national audience in his seventies with recordings for Columbia and the BBC and an appearance on the BBC radio programme In Town Tonight.



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