of the massive far more qualified than me to point you in the right direction Simon, but may I suggest an outfit called 'The Owl Service', they have a cd out called 'A garland of Song', and very fine it is too, believe it was reviewed in The Word last year, a thrilling mix of the traditional with a bit of experimentation thrown in for good measure

Seth Lakeman - firey fiddles from the west country
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset - stirring ballads of Northumberland life
Jim Morey - electronic tinged middle England

Enjoy.

I feel a Spotify playlist coming on...

are still accepted under the folk banner. You must of heard The Imagined Village SimonL! Lisa Knapp, Kris Drever and Show of Hands are all worth an investigation.

And then there's that chap that had that song about his Dad that was never anygood with money the year before last. Can't remember his name but it'll come back to me....

You can't go wrong with almost any seventies JM release , although probably best not start with Inside Out..

Criminally - John Smith who I saw supporting John Martyn doesn't even seem to have got on the radar yet - he's probably one of THE best guitarsists I've ever seen - just watch his acoustic-as-percussion performance here..

Andy Votel's Welsh Rare Beat - a Welsh language folk-comp is a treat..

Pick up any CD by or with Kate Rusby. Look at the list of backing musicians/collaborators, tapping their name in turn into your search engine and you come up with as good a launchpad as any, viz Seth Lakeman (who I personally don't like), Cara Dillon, John McCusker, Andy Cutting, Eddi Reader, Martin Simpson, John Tams, Donald Shaw, Michael McGoldrick, the list is endless. Tap in their names too and you will spread the web wider. The incestuousness of the folk "scene" is such that there seems no fear of mixing and matching.
Or then there is the equivalent launchpad of Eliza Carthy.
And bear in mind these are already 2nd generation artists.
Just out this last week or two is John McCuskers "Under One Sky, a deliberate attempt to bring together the traditions of the 4 countries of the UK, with many of the names above, but also with Roddy Woomble, erstwhile frontman for REM-alikes Idlewild, who has become a bit of a hairy face and jumpered folkie of late, with an excellent solo LP and a trio package with the aforementioned McCusker and Kris Drever, himself the son of Ivan Drever, once the singer with Wolfstone, scots folk-rockers exemplar. Under One Sky has had reviews that have not been as complimentary as I believe is deserving, as it is an instrumental gem, garnished by the vocals of not only Woomble and Tams, but also the glorious velvet baritone of Jim Causley, new to me, and glorious gaelic songstrel, Julie Fowlis.

Be prepared to be swamped

...definitely folk but not yer conventional finger in ear and pint mug in hand stuff; you might like to try Bellowhead. Singer John Boden is my neighbour but I'm only slightly biased by that...

Particularly the post about following the musicians backing Kate Rusby (while certainly also including Kate herself at the top of any list).

My personal English recommendations for checking out:

Show of Hands
Home Service
John Tams
Albion Band (in its many incarnations going right back to the seventies)
Oysterband
Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson, Eliza Carthy and their various combinations including Martin with Dave Swarbrick
Martin Simpson
Spiers and Boden both as a duo and as part of Bellowhead
June Tabor
The Barely Works (now disbanded but CDs should still be around)

I'm sure there are lots more.

I've tried all permutations but I just can't handle his voice. In perusing his website just now, I note that the cedit for his photos is for one David Angel. The eco-warrior, I wonder?

How could I forget OysterBand?! I would suggest an easy start with their June Tabor collaboration, Thunder and Rain, then picking one of their retrospectives before heading off into their now pretty big repertoire.
They also feed into the above tortuous interweaving courtesy their Big Session tours and LP, involving Eliza Carthy and Jim Moray, amongst others. And they are also frequently involved with the accoustic Chumbawamba, the electro-anarchy days long gone, who are highly recommended for their last 4 or 5 albums, which are definitely folk. And who offer perhaps the finest harmony vocal sound in the land these days.

… or whatever they're calling it this week, if you're interested in pursuing that line, try to track down a series of CDRs called Lammas Night Laments. I think there were about 12 produced. Never commercially available, copies were doing the rounds a few years back, and they're an incredible and wide-ranging collection of mainly British, but also US and European, tracks from late-60s-mid-70s. All the big names are there (Anne Briggs, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Donovan et al), plus cult favourites like Mellow Candle, Comus, Mr Fox and many, many mpre obscure gems. There's a big Wicker Man vibe to a lot of this. Not everything is great, of course, but it's still the acid-folk motherlode. Two commercial comps, Gather In The Mushrooms and Early Morning Hush, seem to have been based on the series, and are a good starting point.

Here's a starter list for English/British folk. I've been a bit restricted as Spotify seems unaware of many of my favourites and for others it doesn't necessarily have their best material. But, assuming I've got the technicalities right, feel free to add to this playlist.

http://open.spotify.com/user/lftony/playlist/1d9UaDqWMR0TQJ6cVzC7oe

for me "Trespasser" is a superb album of original and trad folk

A Larum by Johnny Flynn is easily my most played record of last year. Great live too!
I suppose Richard and Linda Thmopson and Fairport Convention's stuff goes without saying!

and the late, great Nick Drake. Are we allowed to mention Richard Thompson?

is pretty much a given. He's been in my music collection for a very long time. John Martyn too, although not the earlier stuff until recently.

Also, having been a fan from an early age thanks to my Dad, Donovan's poppier end of 60s folk is a particular favourite style of mine. Any Brits that went down that particular bright and breezy avenue with him?

Bellowhead (and therefore, Spiers and Boden)
Tim Van Eyken
Kris Drever
Eliza Carthy
Seth Lakeman
Kate Rusby

and get, get, GET The Imagined Village album, despite Tam Lin being revisited and butchered to death (IMHO).

Scottish admittedly but very good, very bouncy and very dancey.

an ex of mine worked at Cecil Sharp House. I'm sure I saw Spiers and Boden perform there at one time. Have they been around that long?

So this prompted me to look for some Davy Graham on Youtube, which offered this

Very nice, can't beat a bit of London bombsite (cf The London Nobody Knows) - but what about the Ken Russell doc from which it is taken? Looks like a winner. Must be this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052866/

Now I want to see the rest of it...

...is well worth a listen. Though I'm not a huge folk follower, No Earthly Man and The Amber Gatherers are both favourites of mine. From a bit further back Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs is always a treat.

That Rachel Unthank & The Winterset is damn damn good. I admit to sometimes avoiding Mercury Prize nomination albums. Especially the more 'specialist' albums. But everybody should give them a listen.

Lau

by others in the early 70s but try "On the Shore" by Trees as a starter for ten.

This is just fabulous:

Barbara Ellen from zeta-oral on Vimeo.

I now have an iPod nano renamed The Beard and several (try quite a few..)recommendations from this thread. Thank heavens for birthday gifts of music vouchers and money!

I knew Kate Rusby but hadn't really investigated: lovely voice, lovely lovely voice. The Rachel Unthank one is excellent too and out of the others I've loaded and had random play going on with Bellowhead has stood out quite a lot.

Thanks!!!

No mention of the great Steeleye Span yet, their pre-Chrysalis albums are of particular interest, the earliest featuring both Terry Woods and Ashley Hutchings. Nice to see The Albion Band name-checked, if you want something a little more esoteric check out the Morris-On album featuring messrs Hutchings, Kirkpatrick and Word fave Richard Thompson amongst others. There are other Morris On discs, but, with each disc the pleasure is diminished, unfortunately. I'm happy to second Mr Fox, also, check out The Trees (I think there are some new remasters/delux editions going around) and The Dransfields. Enjoy.

It credits some of them, where available.
http://open.spotify.com/user/lftony/playlist/1d9UaDqWMR0TQJ6cVzC7oe

The Old Dance School are a really good folk band from the midlands. I prefer their instrumentals to their songs and I recommend Rosemann Bridge and Cwm Dieldre in particular.

Seen them live, they all look about 12 and made me feel awfully untalented as a result...