What's the word? Well, I'll go for curiosity, not so much as inquisitiveness as unusualness. This isn't the sort of thing I've encountered in quite a while on more than one level. For one of my listening history, not to mention in the context of 2020, it's like finding the unexpected in the familiar. I doubt that it ever occurred to me, even passingly, that somebody would do this now. But somebody just has.

Before the COVID-19 infestation (if your memory takes you through the distant mists of history), the vocal trio Gathering Time toured the Northeastern circuit, catching the notice of the region's folk disc jockeys and of Peter Yarrow, who notes that the three "follow in the footsteps of The Weavers and Peter Paul & Mary." In my judgment the Weavers were unlistenable,while PP&M, who clearly took their initial inspiration from them, were the most musically adept of the 1960s folk-pop groups.

Old Friends consists of songs that were mostly radio hits in the latter 1960s and early 1970s. Of the 13, though this is marketed as a folk record, only three of the writers -- Pete Seeger, Sylvia Fricker Tyson and Gordon Lightfoot -- considered themselves part of the folk movement. Jerry Garcia maintained an interest in folk, among other styles, till his death, and the genre's influence on the Grateful Dead is easily detectable. Others represented here (e.g. Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Stephen Stills) passed briefly through folk music on their way to pop and rock stardom and ever after denied any acquaintance with the suddenly shunned genre. (It was during this time in the wilderness that the condescending slur "folkie" was invented.) As these things work, folk is now hip again. The circle is never broken.

Anyway, most of the content strikes me as less folk than a glancing reflection of it, mostly evident in the straightforward, pleasing melodies of the sort one associates with folk-like music. In the mid-1960s that evolved from an older definition of folk (something closer to the tradition) to the newer designation "folk-rock." Some fine, smart songs were among the happier consequences.

My favorite by far is the secular hymn "Ripple" by Garcia/Robert Hunter first cut on the Dead's 1970 classic American Beauty. Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" will always please my ears. Other songs range from Janis Ian's harrowing "At Seventeen" to sentimental favorites such as Chet Powers's (aka Dino Valente's) "Get Together" and Dick Holler's "Abraham, Martin & John." In the latter group I like some numbers better than others, but nothing is painful to listen to.

Gathering Time (which consists of Hillary Foxsong, Stuart Markus and Gerry McKeveny) sings them capably in the style of the commercial folk-pop of another age. Unfortunately, the three also perform and arrange them as closely to the originals as they can get them -- sometimes within what feels like a near-claustrophobic distance -- which means that if you have these in your collection there's no particular reason to listen to Old Friends. Unless, of course, you treasure the convenience of having 13 favored songs on a single disc.

Still, while it's pleasant enough for what it is, it would have been more engaging if the group had expended some creative energy on the arrangements. Or at least that's how I'd prefer it. If that doesn't matter to you, maybe Old Friends is for you.