PASSIONATE folk singer John Tams is a natural-born storyteller.

This bard of the working class is inspired by the vernacular and Britain's industrial heritage peopled by characters who took an immense pride in making things.

"We don't make things now except a fuss," Tams told an appreciative audience during a cosy concert in East Yorkshire. It was as if Tams and his musical collaborator, Barry Coope ,had set up their instruments in the snug bar of a quintessential English pub and had invited fellow drinkers to join a singalong.

A seated Tams would introduce each song with a story to put it in context.

After a couple of digressions, he would then sing it from the heart, accompanying himself on guitar, with Coope on keyboards and harmony vocals. Sometimes Tams would play harmonica, other times Coope would sing lead vocals.

The atmosphere these two musicians created was so mellow you did not realise that the topics their songs explored carried barbed messages that cut to the quick. They sang about suffering, communities destroyed by industrial upheavals and individuals battered by global forces.

In Will I See Thee More?, Tams set words to a tune by the Scottish fiddle player John McCusker about a young soldier going to war.

The Banks Of The Red Roses was used in Sharpe, the popular television costume drama about Wellington's army. Tams, the actor, had played one of Sean Bean's "chosen men".

Tams transformed the Dylan song Don't Think Twice It's Alright into a lament by a striking miner and Vulcan/Steelos was his eulogy to Sheffield's once proud steel industry from last year's acclaimed Radio Ballad series for the BBC.