Hedy West

US folk singer, popular in Britain, whose performances had a political dimension

Described by the great English folk musician AL Lloyd as "far and away the best of American girl singers in the [folk] revival", Hedy West, who has died at the age of 67, was the real deal. In the 1960s, the urban-based American folk revival had an idealised view of the singers and instrumentalists from poor, rural America, and sought to emulate them. This was West's background, but she was educated and intelligent and had little sympathy for the city copyists.

The foundation of her singing was the traditional ballads and songs of her childhood. These songs had their roots in the folk songs of Britain and Ireland - songs such as Little Matty Groves and The Wife of Usher's Well. In addition, she wrote her own songs, or adapted songs from her community, the best known of which are Cotton Mill Girls and 500 Miles, which was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, the Seekers, Bobby Bare and Sonny and Cher.

Born in Cartersville, Georgia, West grew up on a farm in nearby Kenesaw. She was named Hedwig Grace, the former name from a German friend of her father, but it was quickly shortened to Hedy. It was a musical family: her great-uncle Gus played the fiddle, while her grandmother Lillie, a great influence on West's musical development, played the banjo. West had piano lessons from the age of four, and taught herself to play the five-string banjo, as her grandmother had done. In the late 1970s, she received funding from the American National Endowment for the Arts for a detailed project of the music and life of her grandmother.

Hedy's father Don West was a trade union organiser and a well known southern poet, and later she set some of his poems to music, including Anger in the Land, based on a story about the lynching of a black man, told to Don West by the victim's brother. The song was later sung by Pete Seeger.

Having won a prize for ballad singing when she was only 12, by her teens West was singing at folk festivals, both locally and in neighbouring states. In 1959, she moved to New York to study music at Mannes College and drama at Columbia University. She was also absorbed by the folk revival in the city, and invited by Pete Seeger to sing alongside him at a Carnegie Hall concert. Her talents were quickly recognised, and after singing on a compilation album, New Folks, for the Vanguard label, she soon made two solo records for the company.

She moved to the west coast and Los Angeles in the early 1960s, where she continued singing and later married. By this time, she was making regular visits to England. She then lived in London for seven years, making tours of the country's folk clubs, and appearing at the Cambridge festival and the first Keele folk festival. She recorded three albums for Lloyd at Topic - Old Times and Hard Times (1965), Pretty Saro (1966) and Ballads (1967) - together with another for Fontana, entitled Serves 'em Fine.

In the early 1970s, she lived in Germany, where, before returning to the US to study composition, she made a number of further recordings, including one with fellow American Bill Clifton, Getting Folk out of the Country (1974), and another entitled Love, Hell and Biscuits (1980). Her songwriting gave a political dimension to her performances, and she was active in the freedom movements of the 1960s and beyond. She strongly supported the boycott of the ABC network after it refused to include Pete Seeger in its programming.

Hedy's singing was heard less frequently in recent years, and she stopped altogether when cancer affected her voice. At the time of her death, she was living in Long Island. Her husband predeceased her. She is survived by her daughter.

· Hedy West (Hedwig Grace), folk singer, born April 6 1938; died July 3 2005