Vaughan Williams and the Copper family especially.

Davey Graham Guitar player and Folk blues and beyond
Incredible string band Hangman's beautiful daughter
Fairport Unhalfbricking and Leige and Leif
Third ear band Alchemy
Roy Harper Stormcock..for a more stoned ambience Jolkjokeopus
on the more hey nonny no front Anne Briggs has a voice that is unlike any other
and Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band

And right at the moment I've been listening to Bill Fay. Time the last persecution. singer songwriter for the apocalypse. Which is bracing

This is the album you want:

She really was something else. The best article about her was Colin Harper's piece in Mojo a few years ago.

...it certainly sounds like a really inspiring book, and maybe deserving of what I heard - from another author - was a quite staggering advance from the publishers. Though personally I think I'll not read it. Being involved with Brit-folky people is something I've consciously left behind. Just a personal decision. Headspace is happier in the world of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

But Stimpy's right - make sure you hear Vaughan Williams' 'Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis'. And, yes, Anne Briggs too.

The 'Three Score and Ten' Topic Records retrospective - covers a wide range of British folk musicians over the last 70 years.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Score-Ten-Voice-People/dp/B002HRE0F0/ref=s...

If I were to recommend one British folk album to anyone, I'd probably go for Nic Jones' 'Penguin Eggs' - pure joy.

Three days? That is very impressive!

I've been lugging it around for a few weeks and am only now approaching the final straight. For the most part it's been great and it certainly brings a staggering amount of detail to a very open topic.

It gets a bit heavy and academic at times (don't be fooled by the friendly style of the opening chapter!) but I've really enjoyed the process.

It helps to read it alongside spotify. It's surprising how easily you can check out examples of the musical references the book makes. I'm familiar with many of the artists, but have also been introduced to plenty of others. (Bought a best of MR Fox from Itunes at the weekend).

I haven't quite got to the end yet but my current feeling backs up Jude Rogers review in the latest issue where she suggests that it is very English Centric rather than British. My own walk through the murky waters of "Folk" over the years has been heavily influenced by Irish and Scottish music. I'm not sure my experience is fully represented in the book's journey.

In its defence the book suggests that there has been a stronger musical heritage in Scotland / Ireland that the inhabitants have managed to hold on to without the need for the embarrassment suffered by the English over the likes of Morris Dancing.

That said, it seems wrong to suggest that Electric Eden is anything other than a fantastic achievement. I heartily recommend it and a big thanks to Word for the associated podcast.

Current 93 is an eclectic British experimental music group, working since the early 1980s in folk-based musical forms. The band was founded in 1982 by David Tibet (né David Michael Bunting, renamed 'Tibet' by Genesis P-Orridge sometime prior to forming the group).

This version of the old ballad tamlin is great :

Also loads of the bands releases are on spotify Lucifer Over London is great as is Where the Long Shadows Fall

And 'Early Morning Hush' are two great psych folk compilations, well worth a purchase.

Last year sometime I posted asking for folk recommendations, and The Trees was one that I followed up. Good stuff, although a little stiffer than the Fairports, who are actually quite funky almost in that Stonesy sort of way.

Anyhow, I followed some other little paths and found out the ISBs were a huge influence on Boards Of Canada. So I took BoC, some modern folk influenced stuff - Tunng, and the Trees and Fairports Unhalfbricking and put them in a playlist. You'd be surprised how the four artists made for a very interesting listen, and how compatible they were.

...Mr Young certainly takes an idiosyncratic view of things, his opinion of ISB for example is one that I cannot share. There's some great stuff in there, the antics of Peter Warlock in Eynsford, and some wonderful lyrical passages. He seems to take his pleasures in avoiding the mainstream however, and tends towards the kind of music that makes Circulus sound like Rammstein.
I quite enjoyed the "Folk is a Four letter Word" compilations, especially volume 2 (which has some belting Swedish Folk-rock on "Balladen om Belfast" by Midsommar) they are a few years old now so should be fairly cheap. There was a free Island comp with M*j* last year which may be knocking about somewhere.
As I say, I haven't finished the book yet, but if "Songs from the Wood" by Jethro Tull doesn't get a mention for example, then he has gone too far down the obscure ivy-strewn path to Feyland. That would be my #1 English folk-rock album.

BBC documentary on the composer here for the next couple of days.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t3z2c

..it draws a longer bow than Mr. Harpers fine tome (..but indeed uses it as a source) and ressurects much that has been forgotten in Britain's endless and relentless stampede toward the new, and it's inexplicable disdain for its own folk music.