Old friend looking for acoustic folk inspired music

One disc I can highly recommend (and that I've been using as a reference for the past year or so) is "The Elizabethan Session" album produced in 2014. This is a recording of 13 songs from 8 different current UK folk artists all inspired by the times of Queen Elizabeth I. There are a number of standout songs and performances and this is a good introduction to the work of all of these artists, in addition the album is very well recorded in a period house with great sense of space on many of the tracks

http://www.folkbytheoak.com/tes.aspx

Lp2Cd -- so dismissing everything Ani DiFranco ever did would also cover "Fellow Workers"? Presumably an album that meets your definition of folk - songs from the movement for social justice and labour rights would certainly fit strongly in anyones definition of folk?

And by that same token what the hell do I make of "1000 years of popular music" by Richard Thompson -- my point being that the folk canon does evolve and the greatest artists link past and present 😉

But back on topic if you really want to connect to the heart of a rich and flourishing folk tradition then look to the British Isles, the enclosed is a great resource

http://brightyoungfolk.com/