The closest equivalent in Britain to American folk pioneers Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger is Ewan MacColl, widely regarded as the father of the modern British folk movement. It was MacColl who wrote the old favourite Dirty Old Town in 1946 about his native Salford, and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for his wife Peggy Seeger in 1963, nine years before Roberta Flack had a hit with it. But it wasn't until the coming of Bob Dylan that the British folk movement really began to find a voice within the mainstream.
The earliest manifestations of this include the romantic idealism of Scottish singer Donovan and the more traditional output of Ralph McTell. A little later came John Martyn, who wrote Solid Air for Nick Drake, an artist elevated to cult status in recent years following his unfortunate death in 1974.

As the modern movement has grown and diversified the true folkie has become rarer and rarer, replaced by more introspective singer-songwriters, some of whom have embraced folk-rock and the pop production techniques which have become more prevalent within the industry. Traditions of political protest and social commentry inherent in folk have remained alive however, in the hands of artists such as Roy Harper, Labi Siffre, Richard Thompson and Billy Bragg, and the singer-songwriter tradition continues to throw up talents such as PJ Harvey, Richard Hawley, Amy Winehouse and Ed Sheeran, with Kathryn Tickell, Kate Rusby and Karine Polwart prominent in the modern folk tradition.

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