UK Folk

The British folk revival: fingerstyle guitar, old ballads and the electric turn.

What you're really asking

You're asking about the British folk revival of the late sixties and early seventies: traditional ballads reworked, intricate fingerstyle guitar, and the move from acoustic clubs into electric folk rock.

It runs from solitary and strange to full-band grandeur.

Where it sits

Through the late sixties, British folk clubs produced a generation of singers and players who reworked traditional material and wrote their own. Bert Jansch and the Incredible String Band led the acoustic and psychedelic wings, while Fairport Convention and Richard Thompson plugged in and invented electric folk rock, much of it on Island and Transatlantic.

The scene

Who: Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band, Vashti Bunyan, John Martyn, Richard and Linda Thompson and their circle. Where: Britain's folk clubs and the labels around them.

What: fingerstyle guitar, reworked ballads, and the electric-folk turn. How a record gets in: it belongs to this British folk revival.