To American ears, modern British folk music can sound archaic. In lyric, it more often resembles the songs of the Great Depression that were unearthed and released by American folk archivist Harry Smith in the 1950s than it does the protest songs that Smith’s anthology eventually inspired in bars throughout Greenwich Village. How appropriate, then, that while Bob Dylan and others married Woody Guthrie to Pete Seeger, England’s Bert Jansch was looking to those same English and Celtic influences from which many of America’s folk songs were born.Today, Mr. Jansch releases a new solo album, “The Black Swan” (Drag City/Caroline), and, later this week, begins his first American tour in almost a decade.

Mr. Jansch has been a folk hero ever since his first solo work in 1965 influenced the likes of Jimmy Page, Neil Young, and other future rock gods. Dozens of solo albums later, as “Black Swan” confirms, he’s still capable of writing dark and beautiful guitar songs. With producer Noah Georgeson, who’s known for his work with Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, Mr. Jansch jumps on board with the young folk artists who have looked to oft-neglected musicians of the older generation in making some of the best music in recent years. Here, Mr. Jansch collaborates with Beth Orton, Otto Hauser, and Mr. Banhart. It’s a move that will remind some of Vashti Bunyan’s recent collaborations with the musicians in Brooklyn’s Animal Collective, or the fact that her first album in decades was made at the behest of Mr. Banhart.

Mr. Banhart, who looks to British folk as much as American, sings on Mr. Jansch’s rendition of the traditional American folk song “Katie Cruel.” Ms. Orton sings here too, though not always with great success.There’s less of Mr. Jansch’s gravelly voice on this album than normal, and where Ms. Orton’s airy voice is a stand-in, the music suffers, as there is an incompatibility between voice and music; even worse is when she and Mr. Jansch sing duet. Perhaps this is because the music does not cater to her voice particularly, as it does on her own latest album, “Comfort of Strangers.”

As always, Mr. Jansch’s guitar playing remains of the highest order. And he’s a guitarist of trans-Atlantic influence before anything else. On “A Woman Like You,” Mr. Jansch slows down his rendition of a classic from the repertory of his earlier days. It’s a nice version with the addition of a slide guitar, but not necessarily better than how he played it in the 1960s. On the protest song “Bring Your Religion,” which Mr. Jansch wrote with his wife Loren, he calls for people to “stand tall, show what you are made of.” Mr. Jansch weighs in on current politics with “Texas Cowboy Blues,” singing in an affected voice over puffed-up drums and guitar about guns, arrogance, and wars motivated by oil to drive big cars. The song, it seems, is intended to be bad, and it succeeds.

But it is on the title track where Mr. Jansch is in top form, with a cello weaving through his delicate finger picking as he sings “no earthly sound can penetrate this black and airless void,” his voice as Celtic and forlorn sounding as ever. Also noteworthy is the closing track, “Hey Pretty Girl,” a blues that promotes the “crazy drug” that is rock ‘n’ roll.

Mr. Jansch is a rare kind of musician. His dedications to guitar innovation as well as traditional song retain the rural sensibility that is at the heart of all folk music. Though he never got away from this, or from incorporating elements of blues or rock ‘n’ roll, it is wonderful to see Mr. Jansch inspire yet another generation of musicians while continuing to make his deeply felt songs of sadness and loss.