Contemporary Folk Music Thread

I'm a huge fan of the singer/songwriter genre, particularly when it comes to anything ever written or thought of by Jim Croce. I've found it moderately difficult to come across people still writing/performing today that fall into this genre (and are good at it), so applicable artist suggestions are much appreciated.

My current list of favorites (and a song or two from each):

Johnsmith Rooks in the Castle. Silence the Thunder (an actual album version, for those that prefer studio cuts!). He's very inspired by his Irish heritage and the country of Ireland in general- it serves as the theme for a large portion of his music, and there's tons of videos of him on YouTube covering traditional Irish songs (his version of Kilkelly is my favorite that I have come across)

Dana Cooper- Milewide Smile. Leave a Little Mark. He's very much a singer-songwriter with pretty decent guitar skills (seen more in the first link).

Chris Elliott- A lot of his songs are written to be on the 'funny' side, but I'm a particularly big fan of Heavy Metal Dayz (no full version available online, but it is on spotify). That's a bit of a production for a folk thread, though. Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Holy Bible is a very creative one. Since I first started listening to him, he's joined up with Lisa Austin, and they have a pretty good listening library available on their website. Since joining with her, he's a bit less of a comedian in his songs, and she adds some hauntingly good harmonies.


Greg Hayden- Louisiana and Time
He's a little more on the side of blues for a couple of songs, but the stuff that he goes purely acoustic on is pretty good.


And it's probably cheating, since she's somewhere in between bluegrass and folk, and also pretty famous, but in the spirit of folk artists who are currently writing: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are beyond impressive Look at Miss Ohio