Garland was a kingpin in the home grown folk music scene for half a century, as singer-songwriter and as folklorist and collector of precious heritage material: poetry, songs, stories and yarns from our colonial past. He was acknowledged as the foremost authority on local folkloric heritage, and it is testament to his musical ability, his broad-based knowledge, his perseverance, and commanding stage presence that he was able earn a lifelong living in this musical field that is arguably as fringe to mainstream music as poetry is to populist literature.
To mark the first anniversary of Phil Garland's death, in March 2018 Kiwi-Pacific digitised 13 of his albums and made them available via Spotify and iTunes.