Old friend looking for acoustic folk inspired music

One of my "new favorites" is Antje Duvekot, especially her Live from all over the place CD.  Matraca Berg is a killer songwriter with an angel's voice and a good sense of humor, (Honey, your husband's cheatin' on us).  Also, Hank's granddaughter, Holly Williams. 

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

Marc Carroll "Stone Beads & Silver"
John Moreland "In The Throes", "Earthbound Blues"
Eric Bachman of  Archers of Loaf & here Crooked Fingers, "Breaks In The Armor". While not normally classified as "folk", I think this lp is.

Classifying artists into specific genres is really hard these days...

..a couple more..

I think it's safe to qualify Calexico as folk.,  you will not find a much better group musicians than what make up this band.

Tift Merritt, I saw her on the Traveling Alone tour. I believe John Convertino was on drums (Calexico), and the pedal steel player, the name is escaping me right now, however, I found it hard to keep my attention on Tift, because of the "ease" in which these two musicians excelled in their craft!