Hallo, I'm new here ...so I'd appreciate it if nobody eats me alive (I was gently reared on the BBC folk board :)

About Kate Rusby --she does have a beautiful voice and all, (and she's pretty too, which helps) but she doesn't wake you up in the way that I personally expect English folk to, and which I would say is one of the things that makes it different from much of the Celtic music currently available today (though if you listen to the Voice of the People set you realise that Celtic wasn't always like that). As a die-hard Watersons, Maddy Prior, Swarb, Carthys-of-all-descriptions fanatic, I appreciate it when I hear an English singer putting power and feeling and vigour into their performance. I haven't listened to all that much by Kate Rusby, but what I did hear (the more recent stuff) had a disconcertingly country-and-western lilt to it. I'm afraid that puts me right off, when I sit down to listen to folk music. She COULD be terrific if she put more feeling into it. I had the same problem with Cara Dillon, who is Irish --I heard her music on the radio, thought she had a great voice, bought the CD, listened to it a few times and vaguely liked it, then put it on my CD rack and forgot about it for the next six months. Whereas "Rice" makes a sortie every few weeks or so, and the Watersons are on heavy rotation.


When it comes to English female folk singers --how about Anne Briggs and Lal Waterson? Not to mention June Tabor and Linda Thompson ("Never Again" playing in the background...)

Cheers,

Isabel