I used to love going to see Steeleye Span. Maddys voice is superb . But last time we saw them she struggles with the high notes now.
Always remember a concert in Sheffield where she disappeared off stage during a jig , reappeared at the mixing console in the circle, downed a”good swig” of Johnny Walkers and then went back to the stage.
She didn’t halfdance well after that.
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I think you hit the right note here … for me the voice is a hook that takes me into the music. An exception is this …
Being a fan and prompted by the mention of Jon Boden above, I sat down with a big sheet of paper and tried to do a Pete Frame starting with Jon Boden and Fay Hield. I quickly had something that would be more appropriate in the undressing candles thread.
Given that Fay Hield is a lecturer in Ethnomusicology it seems reasonable that she and her many connections are folk music.
Her own albums perhaps sit on the border of electric folk, not quite as the instruments are acoustic and definitely not in the Fairport or Steeleye Span manner.
Her earlier work as part of the Witches of Elswick, unaccompanied, beautiful arrangements.
Follow the connections with all of the Full English band and you start to join the wider folk family, in particular through Martin Simpson and Nancy Kerr.
Jon Boden has similar links, Spiers and Boden, Bellowhead, Eliza Carthy’s band Ratcatchers.
It gets wider and wider, but also it appears the links keep coming back to Carthy and Waterson.
Anyone wanting to explore, find different interpretation of what the genre is gives enough listening for a month or two, just start with these names, follow the lists you get in Wikipedia and search YouTube.
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You are so bad, Spell Songs and the Lost Words were on a want list that I mislaid, the credit card takes another hit!
The members of that group add to my post above about the links in the greater folk family. Beth Porter as well as her own band The Availables, duo the Bookshop Band, plays with Eliza Carthy, Kris Drever part of Lau, it gets bigger and bigger.
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It would be rude if this thread forgot Mr Jones! A must for everyone’s collection and in my all time top ten. Output all but ended by an RTA in 1982, but Penguin Eggs is a legacy few achieve…
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The Unthanks - great live too. I like the orchestral stuff and the Molly Drake album.
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Wonderful album.
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Fairport Convention not in folk? They certainly aren’t, for the most part, pop, IWHT. How about Steeleye Span? They seem to divide people, because they use electric instruments - but folk music was made by ordinary folk - who would certainly have used electric instruments if they had been available.
Stackridge? are they folk? Pentangle?
As always, it is very difficult to categorise - folk is a very wide grouping, IWHT.
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I like some forms of Folk, but currently really liking This Is The Kit, who some might say are not Folk. I would suggest contemporary Folk…?
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One of the best Live Albums, live in London, 1968. His early Folk stuff.
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Rhiannon Giddens is very good, I think - I really like Last Kind Words. And Rosemary Standley - one of my favourites of hers is All the World Is Green - particularly the cello accompaniment.
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Not very well known singer Mick Softley, hung out a little with Donovan. Sadly died in a care home in Ireland in 2017. Generally more Blues Folk.
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My experience too hearing them a couple of years ago. But she still sounds fine on this:
A favourite album not least because it still reminds me of the wit and humanity of Terry Pratchett, still much missed, at least by me.
Roger
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I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Pentangle live on a couple of occasions. 
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Great voice too
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Her latest 2 albums with her partner Francesco Turrisi are quite different but definitely worth a listen. I saw them live in 2019, excellent. I’ll check out Rosemary Standley - thanks for the recommendation.
Absolutely, as a teenager I went to folk clubs around the greater Bristol area, saw the likes of Adge Cutler, Fred Wedlock, Jasper Carrot, Pentangle, Dave and Toni Arthur (cannot remember if it was through the round window etc.). As well as the many names at the Troubador. Certainly not all finger in the ear’ole dirge that some stereotype the UK part of the genre.
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