Probably the man who had the greatest influence on me was Ewan MacColl. I first heard him on record, singing sea songs with Bert Lloyd, and had the creepy feeling that I'd known the the songs and the voice for 'all of my life' (I was about 19 at the time).
Soon after this two friends asked Ewan and Peggy (Seeger) to come to our area and give one of their weekend workshops for local singers and would-be-singers (like me). I still regard that weekend to be the greatest educational experience of my life and consider that it shaped the rest of my life. For a start the weekend taught me that I could sing (I wasn't too sure if I could up to that point)but it also taught me about aspects of performance that I'd never even thought about. It also taught me a lot about the importance and significance of traditional song and traditional singers. Some time later I bought Ewan's Topic LP, 'The Manchester Angel' which started an interest in specifically English trad. song - an interest which continues to grow year by year.
When I left home, and moved to a 'big city', I met more people who shared my enthusiasm for Ewan, his music and folk song in general. These people became firm friends and formed the basis of my social life in my new abode.
Even long after his death, in 1989, there still appears to be a strong 'anti-MacColl' faction around and a fair amount of myth and ill-feeling. Nevertheless, there is another view that he was a giant of the folk world and a genius who made an enormous contribution to our chosen musical form. I'm firmly of the latter opinion and feel that he enriched my life and that I owe him a debt of gratitude.