IN A swell year for Kate Rusby, she has won Best Live Act in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and had her first top ten hit, a plaintive duet with Ronan Keating.

She didn't do her pop moment, All Over Again, at Friday's concert but a sold-out York audience fell in love with her all over again.

At 32, Kate is picking just about the perfect set list (only the fruity Sweet Bride would have improved it), as she strengthens her hand with her own beautifully melancholic songs, in particular Let Me Be and No Names.

She complements olden tales of knights and dragons, dukes and tinkers, faraway sailors and never faraway sex and murder with contemporary mournful accounts of equally troubled love and sleepless nights.

Unlike a Kylie or Beyonc, what makes Kate the "best live act" in folk is not only Kate, however. Vital too are Andy Cutting's accordian and John McCusker's sublime fiddle and whistle, especially in a revitalised I Courted A Sailor.

Friday had further treats. Buttered up by Kate's Barnsley banter, a quintet from the Grimethorpe Colliery Band heightened the sweet sadness of My Young Man and Underneath The Stars.

And could another pop hit await Kate? Her encore rendition of The Village Green Preservation Society - the title music for Jennifer Saunders' new sitcom - gave the nostalgic Kinks number a deliciously new northern kink. Guitarist Ian Carr may have switched just this once to electric, but long may Kate never sing of IT managers and lap-dancers.