The definitive English folk rock LP has to The Battle of the Field by a short lived Albion Country Band. Why definitive? Because I was only 14 or so when I first heard it and therein my heart first opened. The Lal and Mike Waterson album Bright Phoebus was not by a band as such, but it has a collective identity which many bands would happily die for in this day and age; and in terms of sound, no folk rock LP ever sounded so amazing.

Mr Fox. Ever listened to Mendle whilst driving around in the shadow of Pendle beneath glowering storm clouds? Perfect!

The Amazing Blondel. I reckon their 1997 reunion album Restoration to be their finest work, but anything with John David Gladwin in the line-up is a delight - check the live album from 1970-73 Foreign Field. Wincott's recorder playing is one of our nation's saving graces.

Steeleye Span. Even as a kid I remember watching them doing Alison Gross on an in concert TV special thinking that this music had all the right ingredients for me and yet for the life of me I couldn't like it. Maddy Prior is one of my favourite singers but, as with Karen Carpenter, I wish she'd maybe dug a little deeper somehow.

Ken Hyder's Talisker. Free jazz from a Scottish perspective; pibrochs, waulking songs, mouth music, even the occasional song (Whistle O'er the Lave O't) essayed as no Folk band would have dared. Love 'em dearly & madly; droning arco double basses and keening saxophones and clarinets, pounding drum salutes dissolving into pure free noise. Now that's what I call music...

Were the Third Ear Band folk? Free improvised modal ragas and atonal soundscapes woven from the darker occult heart of Albion with occasional nudges into the medieval... Hmmm, sounds like FOLK to me, but maybe not in the various parameters as understood here on Mudcat. Paul Minns redefined the word Oboe, and along with Richard Coff's violin playing remains one of the seven wonders of my musical universe. Here they are totally copping Bitches Brew...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfj0oOv240M