Listen to a bunch of recordings of traditional singers from different areas/traditions to get some idea of the styles of traditional singing and see which appeal to you most strongly. There are many fine recordings of traditional singers. Voice of the People is a 20 CD set, sold individually, with two CDs devoted to ballads, although there are some ballads on other CDs in the set.

There are also many fine book collections of ballads from various areas. Of course you will want to start with Francis Child "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads" (5 volumes), the standard collection of 305 ballads and, possibly Bertram Bronson's "Traditional Tunes to the Child Ballads" in either full (4 volume) or abridged (1 volume).

Try CAMSCO Music for both recordings and books, and advice. [Sorry to be commercial - I am the assistant at CAMSCO. Dick Greenhaus, who answered you above, runs the company. We also run the Digital Tradition (DT) database on this site.] Go to camscomusic.com or call Dick at (800) 548-FOLK, if you are in the US or Canada. And join mudcat, so you can send and receive personal messages.

Of course, you might not have meant "ballad" in the sense of traditional "big ballads". CAMSCO can still help you with traditional recordings of many types of folk music, but the book selection is limited mostly to Loomis House/CAMSCO publications.