June Tabor - A Echo Of Hooves n (CD 2003)

June Tabor is, without doubt, the finest interpreter of a song in the English speaking world. Any other superlatives I could employ have been ground into meaninglessness by over application to lesser voices.
There are no familiar songs on Tabor CDs. You may think you know the song: when she sings it only the words remain the same. The meaning is transformed by inflection and timing and also the intimacy and awareness displayed by the support musicians.
Whatever popular music is, this is the very opposite. You won't find her CDs in charity shops 6 weeks after issue. You could buy them all now and you will still be listening occasionally in 10-20-30 years time.
This lady changes the way you think about song. It was said of Sinatra that "others sing the words - he sings the song": Tabor not only sings the song - firstly she remakes it; finds those things the writer unconsciously inserted: and then draws these things out in a performance that makes everything deeply personal. This lady can hint at horrors unimaginable just by the way she draws a mid-phrase breath.
To call her a folk singer is like calling Michaelangelo a stone-mason.