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Caroline Saarl meets a young Welsh singer who found musical inspiration in the recordings of a distant relative…

Neil Woollard is the lead singer of Rag Foundation, a three piece band based in the Gower region of Wales. Neil had never really been into folk music, but that all changed when his friend and fellow band-mate Richard Cowell came across a recording of the music of 1930’s Glamorganshire mouth singer and wassailer Phil Tanner.

Richard gave the recording of Phil’s music to Neil to listen to and he was immediately taken by it. "You could hear in his voice that he was obviously a singer with passion who believed in what he was doing—which is hopefully what comes across when I sing. That’s all I want is to just be an honest performer and an honest singer."

A few weeks later, when Neil was reunited with his biological father (whose surname is Tanner) just before his marriage to Kate, they started talking about the history of the family. His father explained that there had been many singers in the family and that Phil Tanner was one of them.

Phil had no children himself, but he did have seven brothers and it turned out that Neil is Phil’s great nephew, three times removed. While this was all initially a shock to Neil, it eventually lead to a kind of musical awakening. "I never thought I would be doing folk music because it was never a part of my musical vocabulary. But Kate introduced me to folk music and then Richard brought the Phil Tanner tape along and it all clicked into place -- like the last piece of a jigsaw and I could see the whole picture for once. The part of me singing made sense…I wish I had been able to sit down with him and have a beer and learn some songs off him."

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