No-one compares to Martin Carthy.

Pete Coe is always great.

Kent acoustic heroes "Sussed" are inspiring (if not folk).

For a man who can move from the English tradition to arranged such, and onwards and upwards, with striking guitar and voice, I would mark Davey Rumsey as a hero to be.

Brian and Marion Rodgers ("No Worries") are both musical (and make the difficult look easy) and entertaining.

Steve Bailey can make you wonder how a white man from Cornwall can sound so uncannily yet not slavishly as if he came from the wrong side of the tracks in Chicago.

Jeff Cole and Matt Loft ("Loft Conversions") take the cyclical jangle of Renbourn/Jansch and the pistoning drive of Nick Drake into the modern world.

Marion Button simply redefines the modern singing of unaccompanied traditional folk song. Go! Worship!

Richard Matthewman is an excellent Edinburgh (but now in Kent) singer-songwriter with some nice traditional material if his arm is twisted, and a splendid tenor voice.