In the late 1940s, when Bill Monroe began showcasing bluegrass on the Grand Ole Opry stage, he did not plan to introduce a new genre of music. (Its roots were in an older one, the Appalachian string band, but radically modernized.) He simply sought a distinctive sound that would draw attention to his particular artistry and attract an audience for his performances and recordings. Bluegrass did not exist by that name until a few years later, and it was not Monroe who thought it up except insofar as his band was called the "Bluegrass Boys."

As it happened, Monroe was appalled to the point of litigation threats when ex-Bluegrass Boys (among them such as destined-to-be-notables Flatt & Scruggs and Carter Stanley) formed bands of their own with lineups and approaches not much different from Monroe's. It was only later, after bluegrass found an international listenership, that the notoriously prickly Monroe came to accept the honorific "Father of Bluegrass."

Joni Mitchell is not Monroe, of course, but at least some parallels are striking. She was a creature of the 1960s folk revival, just as Monroe was of Kentucky musical tradition and the mid-century Opry. Each wanted to make a living -- on his or her own terms -- within the music industry. Each was creative, brilliant, and subversive, and both so wowed their fellow performers that some of the latter immediately wanted to extrapolate from their example. At first Mitchell and Monroe were sufficiently sui generis that no specific name identified what they were doing.

Today we have "bluegrass" for the latter and his descendants -- in other words, bluegrass is no longer called "country" -- while nobody has thought of an original genre designation for early Mitchell and her acolytes to the present. If labeled anything beyond, broadly, female singer-songwriters, they continued to be referred to as "folk singers" unless they're working in pop or jazz or rock; in other words, the ones who play acoustic guitars, sing in sweet voices and are accompanied, if at all, by skeletal bands. In addition, the melodies sound something like those that could accompany plaintive ballads in the folk (i.e., story-song) sense.

Knowing something -- well, a lot -- about folk music, I cringe at the characterization even if I understand how it came to be. Usually, however, the touchstone for this particular strain of singer-songwriters is other singer-songwriters, only a minority steeped in the folk tradition. (It would be interesting, too, if someone could determine how many were English majors.) In A Dark Murmuration of Words Emily Barker, an Australian expatriate living in London, checks the boxes. She has a post-Mitchell style, a sweet voice and a poetic sensibility.

I would add that she's pretty decent. She also is not relentlessly self-referential, and a good portion of her writing has to do with larger issues like environmental despoliation and social dysfunction. (A murmuration, by the way, is a flock of starlings.) The rest concerns, I guess you could say, the twists and turns in our interactions, intimate or distant, with fellow human beings.

Nothing of this will be, can be, strikingly novel; just as with a bluegrass band, you listen for hints of the original or personal amid the familiar. That's easier to do, naturally, if you adore the approach and aren't looking for the unexpected as you would be if you were a pop fan. Which is to say that though most of her listeners aren't seeking folk music in the traditional definition, they still have the mentality of folk geeks like me. Our demand, as a 19th-century song puts it, is a simple one: "Just give me something I'm used to." Just don't bore us while you're at it.

I confess I don't love the post-Mitchell approach, but I don't hate it either. Some of it indeed rises above the ordinary and touches the heart. And when it doesn't accomplish that, it can feel stale and strain patience. What I can say about Murmuration is that if you are enamored of Barker's style, you will appreciate her lovely vocals, her precise writing, and the intelligent arrangements in which the songs are set. There used to be an expression for this sort of thing: good of kind.