Eric Bibb grew up amid folk musicians, one of them his father, stage actor and singer Leon Bibb, in 1960s New York. He also had an uncle, John Lewis, who was an internationally prominent jazz pianist. Since the 1970s the younger Bibb, who plays acoustic guitar and banjo, has written and sung much of his own material while never failing to honor his roots in traditional folk and blues. He also carries forth the progressive values of the movement that grew around the rediscovery of these magnificent old songs.

He records prolifically, always around a basic sound to which he varies settings, sometimes in a starker direction, at other times toward the lush and textured. The two-disc Global Griot is definitely in the latter category, expanding from blues and folk to incorporate African rhythms and jazz. His imagination is a striking instrument indeed. True, once in a while it is broadly reminiscent of Taj Mahal's; mostly, though, it's distinctly his own. Beyond that, there's the kind and generous sensibility, anchored not only in compassionate politics but in something that gives one the impression of non-evangelical Christianity.

Here and there, as an occupational hazard of writing uplift, the result may verge on the syrupy (in common with some efforts by an obvious Bibb influence, the late Pete Seeger), but except for a couple of mildly overwrought true-love songs he has things under control. Griot consists in good part of the sorts of songs usually called topical or protest, which is to say broadsides against greed, racism, hatred and war. One major Griot target is never named, but few will have a problem identifying the individual fingered in "What's He Gonna Say Today?" Bibb has particular sympathy for immigrants, refugees and outcasts. Those who prefer to kick people when they're down probably will not like this album much.

The rest of us, however, will likely hear Griot as Bibb in command of a major recording. His musical chops, movingly accented by West African masters Solo Cissokhoare and Haabib Koite, are as forcefully expressed as his ideological convictions. Besides affecting self-penned numbers such as "Human River" and "Send Me Your Jesus" (among others), Bibb fashions stirring readings of an earlier generation's protest anthems, notably Big Bill Broonzy's "Black, Brown & White" (vocal here by Harrison Kennedy) and Ed McCurdy's "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream." Before this, the most recent version of the latter I've heard appears on an album Johnny Cash cut just prior to his passing. That song never fails to choke me up, and Bibb's intensely felt version is no exception.

He draws on some familiar traditionals, including the hellish, death-haunted "Brazos River Blues" (Kennedy's vocal again), usually titled "Ain't No More Cane on This Brazos." John Lomax collected it in the Texas prison system early in the last century. The slave-era "Michael, Row Da Boat Ashore," among the most poignant spirituals in the American folksong canon, has all the resonance of an otherworldly vision. I wish, however, that Bibb had resisted the temptation to rewrite "Mole in the Ground," whose verses in the original are memorably weird and unsettling, representing the world as seen from the perspective of nature's smallest and most despised creatures. In comparison Bibb's human-centered images only conjure up greeting cards. If ever a folk song did not require intervention, it's this one.

Well, nothing's perfect, and anyway, as is sometimes observed, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Global Griot is undeniably awfully good. Bibb has never felt more inspired than he does here.