I am hoping to corrupt a friend - to introduce her to folk music, so I'm not being anal at the moment about whether it's 1954 folk, anglicana, americana, celtic, or what.

She is a pretty spectacular singer - 4 octave range and some - but does mostly soul and what is called R&B these days, spreading out to disco. Her background is originally New Zealand, but now naturalised British, cosmopolitan and internationally mobile.

I reckon I can find a chink in her armour if I can get her some recordings that are just raw enough, of the killer folk anthems. What I really want to do is to send her links to online versions.

An obvious one is Carrick Fergus (wossname of a range on that) so long as one avoids the ghastly Charlotte Church version and any with any of the interpolated sentimental verses (although a macaronic verse would be OK).

Another might be Paxton's "My Lady's a wild flying dove".

Then there's Watson's "Watercress-O"

Another possible might be "Henry the Poacher" (with the chorus that I suspect was added later, but it has a good hook "Young Men Beware!").

Do you get my drift on the type of song - it sort of cruises along, you can feel the tension building, and then it soars off and demands quite a range? I'd like to include some mainland UK songs in the list, but not many seem to have that sort of characteristic soaring, even if say "The Gairdener Child" does require almost 2 octaves.

What should I suggest she links to?





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