I'd have to pick Linda Thompson. She has such a raw, unadorned voice without ever lacking depth. It's less chiming than someone like Mary Black, with a rough edge and a hint of her Scots ancestry, and less consciously grandious than say Sandy Denny's, but has a strong sense of unforced realness, without ever going close to a nasal folky voice.

Her voice was the perfect match for Richard's songs, able to convey deep melancholy on something like Dimming of the Day, but equally capable of portraying the edgy sarcasm of songs like Hard Luck Stories. And on Fashionably Late she's found her own wonderful songwriting voice that plays to all of her strengths.

I particularly love it when she duets with Kate Rusby on Fashionably Late, it must be two of the greatest voices of their respectives generations sounding wonderful together. I'm at uni and most of my housemates hate, or at the least tolerate, my folk music, but they all love Fashionably Late!