AllMusic noted that "Cameron was one of a quartet of key figures in England's postwar folk song revival – and to give a measure of her importance, the other three were Ewan MacColl, A. L. Lloyd, and Alan Lomax".

One of the traditional songs in her repertoire, "Blackwaterside", recorded by Cameron in 1962, was subsequently popularised by notable "next generation" U.K. folk music performers Anne Briggs, Bert Jansch and Sandy Denny.

[4] In around 1945 Joan Littlewood, who had co-founded the Theatre Workshop with husband Ewan MacColl, was performing with the Workshop in Newcastle and, impressed by the "absolutely pure voice" of Cameron, then in her late teens, invited her to join as lead singer-narrator for a production of a MacColl-authored ballad opera entitled "Johnny Noble", since the person previously in this role was leaving to get married.

In 1951, the American folklorist Alan Lomax visited Britain to compile 2 volumes in a monumental Columbia LP series entitled "A World Library of Folk and Primitive Music", Cameron contributed three songs, "My Bonny Lad", "Brigg Fair" and "Died For Love" to Volume 3 of the series, released in 1955, and a fourth, "O Can Ye Sew Cushions?

Also in 1962, Cameron contributed 6 songs to a Folkways (U.S.) release entitled The Jupiter Book of Ballads, performing "Lord Randall", "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow", "Mary Hamilton" (with John Laurie), "Blackwaterside", "High Barbaree", and "The House of the Rising Sun".

That same year, her own full-length album was released in the U.S. on Prestige International, entitled The Best of Isla Cameron, with guitar, banjo and autoharp accompaniment provided by Peggy Seeger.

In 1966 she released another full-length album, entitled simply Isla Cameron, on XTRA records, this time accompanied by Martin Carthy on guitar on 6 of the 12 tracks, the others being performed unaccompanied.

[citation needed] Her most memorable cinematic moment was in 1961 in the spooky thriller The Innocents, where she imitated a child's voice and sang "Oh, Willow Waly".

[citation needed] However, her voice appeared on the soundtrack album, singing "Bushes and Briars" (Julie Christie mimed in the film) and "The Bold Grenadier".

[citation needed] In 1972 she returned to London and started to work as a film researcher, moving into a flat in Pimlico and virtually retiring from singing.