Hi Michael,
You pretty much can not go wrong with Martin Carthy. He is a fantastic guitarist and great singer. He has made a ton of albums and I have never heard one that wasn't excellent. I particularly like two he did with the fiddler Dave Swarbrick: "Life and Limb", on Green Linnet, and "Skin and Bone", on Special Delivery Records. A lot of stuff that Ewan MacColl did for the old Prestige Folklore label is no longer in print, but there is a collection available from
www.fantasyjazz.com entitled, "The Riverside/Folklore Series, vol. 4: Singing the Mother Countries Dances, Street Songs, Ballads, and Love songs from England Scotland, and Ireland". I have not heard this collection, but it has a bunch of songs and tunes done by heavy hitters like Ewan MacColl, A.L. Lloyd, Margaret Barry, Jeannie Robertson, etc.
If you are interested in hearing American singers do these kind of songs, Smithsonian/Folkways has issued a CD recently called something like Mountain Songs or Mountain Ballads, with performances by great Appalachian singers doing this type of material--people like Roscoe Holcomb, Berzilla and Cass Wallin, Clarence Ashley and many others.
All best,
Johnm
