[bilgepump]

to see what Kodi thought was the folder for an artist. The voyage of Kodi discovery never ends!

Therein lies madness. Kodi's thinking appears to be slightly psychotic. In Kodi 17, you can browse to the artist folder (using item folder), select the artist folder that you KNOW is correct, and it'll still give you Ella Fitzgerald.
I haven't noticed that things are different from different builds, things are different within the same build. For example, if I look at "Mozart" who comes up as an artist, and then manually look at "information", there's no *item folder, and there's also several options of "remote thumb" (presumably from the multiple albums? It isn't the internet "remote thumbs" because there's no internet.....) Another artist has "current thumb" (Ella Fitzgerald, who is not the correct artist) and Local Thumb, but no *item folder. (These examples both come up as "album artists", "show song and album artists" is turned off).

It might all make sense to you because you already have some insight into Kodi's "tortured mind".