After the explosive emergence of rock 'n' roll in the latter 1950s, "country" as a genre seemed on the verge of extinction. Suddenly it seemed corny, old-fashioned, rural and generally as uncool as it could possibly be. Rather than fold up and fade away, country was reinvented as the "Nashville sound," which retained just enough of country's white-Southern, blue-collar character not to drive away the core audience but enough of smooth pop to expand the listenership and keep something called country a commercial proposition.

I spent my first few years in a tiny Midwestern village where I heard hillbilly music regularly (though never at home), usually when records or bands played in social spaces. It would take a while before I started thinking in genres, but by the time I entered college, my preference as often as not led me to country stations. In my mature life I sought out earlier iterations of the music -- oldtime, Western swing, bluegrass, honkytonk -- but my conscious education lay in the stuff that defined the genre in the 1960s.

Except for oldtime and bluegrass (if they're still thought of as related to the larger classification) I don't listen to much country anymore. I didn't decide to do this, understand. It happened in the way one moves on from something (or someone) without realizing one is doing so until it becomes a fait accompli. Current mainstream country holds little -- make that no -- appeal, and of the older variants I apparently grew weary. For some years the bulk of my listening has been to folk (in all its thrilling diversity and more expansive lyrics), blues and occasional jazz.

Still, though I rarely seek it out anymore, I am pleased that good country still sounds to me like good music. Lucinda Williams never does anything bad, at least that I've heard. I admire her tough, mature songwriting, and I love her hard-hitting yet gorgeous voice. I also think nobody does a better job than she does of reviving mid-century rooted popular songs and often even improving on the originals.

If you know '60s country, you will be happily reintroduced to some of the classics from that era. And if you don't, treats await. They include ... well, all 12 covers on Lu's Jukebox Vol. 4. Only #13 is new to me (as it will likely be to you; "Take Time for the Tears" is an original written by her and her husband Tom Overby), but the rest give the impression of welcome prodigals returning home to ear and memory. One is John Hartford's crossover "Gentle on My Mind" (associated most famously with Glen Campbell's 1967 recording), perhaps stylistically closer to '60s folk than to country. It got played so relentlessly back then that I hated it without paying much attention to it. Time and distance have allowed me to embrace its greatness, and to marvel that the country audience recognized that when I was deaf to it. Williams inhabits the heart-wrenching Elvis story-song from 1969, "Long Black Limousine," as she does everything she sings, sparing you the mental work needed to compare her version with the one you first heard. (Wynn Stewart, who did not write it, cut "Limousine" in 1958.)

It's good to hear a bracing cover of Carl Butler's "Don't Let Me Cross Over" (1962), as agonized a cheatin' tune as anything another Williams, a certain Hank, ever put to wax. Willie Nelson's "Night Life," which shares a melody with Brownie McGhee's "Sporting Life Blues," charted for Ray Price in 1963. Nelson wrote the album's title song, first covered by Billy Walker in 1961, still among the most ambitious and literate of country songs. Not what can be said for Loretta Lynn's not exactly IQ-burdened "Fist City" (1965), but Williams sounds like nobody you'd want to mess with, though her threats are bluesier than Lynn's were.

Anyway, if not an album for the ages, it'll do for this cold, scary winter. Besides, it'll renew your appreciation for the versatile, multi-talented Ms. Williams, whose continued presence in our music should never be taken for granted.