Bluegrass and I are not newly acquainted. When I first encountered it, bluegrass was just one variety of country music, like honkytonk or Western swing. Though bluegrass still has token representation on the Grand Ol' Opry stage, it has forged its own identity. It had to, once bluegrass recordings ceased being played on country radio after programmers decided that it was too country to suit country tastes. It was already going out of fashion in the early 1960s when urban musicians conversant in the genre incorporated it into the era's emerging folk revival. But for that circumstance it is easy to imagine that bluegrass would no longer exist in any meaningful sense.

If that seems like something of a miracle, another one is that decades later, the original -- now called "traditional" -- bluegrass survives alongside the fancier, fresher stuff, some of it so removed from Bill Monroe's original vision that it's identifiable as bluegrass only because the players tell you it is. That isn't necessarily bad -- it all depends, not to coin a phrase -- but the old-fashioned kind done with heart and soul has brought me through life's occasional storms and afforded me joy and peace when I particularly needed them. It will always be welcome in my ears.

High Fidelity, whose second release this is (the first somehow got past me), brings to mind the wry observation that you have to be really good at something to make it look simple. The band reminds me of local outfits that managed to get recorded on independent labels in the 1950s and '60s; their influences prominently encompassed country gospel and the Carter Family. High Fidelity, which knows its history, consciously revives that sound with impressive skill. You wouldn't know that its members -- three men, two women -- are with a single exception younger adults.

Of course, none of this works without first-rate material. The choice of songs and tunes on Banjo Player's Blues is flawless, a pleasing mix of the familiar ("Turkey in the Straw," "The Picture on the Wall") and the less-known (the title song [from Charlie Monroe], "Tears of Regret" [from Jim & Jesse McReynolds]). With their spiraling harmonies and gorgeous melodies, the gospel numbers "Dear God" and "Got a Little Light" are so emotionally rich that they will stop you in your tracks. They remind me of the Chuck Wagon Gang (sometimes called the "other Carter Family"). Which, as it turns out, is no coincidence; singer/guitarist Jeremy Stephens, High Fidelity's senior member, once worked for this legendary gospel group. An additional treat: Jesse McReynolds, 90 years old, sings, with startling excellence, a verse of "Tears."

Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road have a deservedly solid reputation as a carrier of bluegrass tradition. I have reviewed other of their albums in this space (most recently on 22 September 2018). This one, sadly, is frustratingly uneven. It's not because the picking, singing and harmonies on Bill Monroe's Ol' Mandolin are failing them. It's the not-always-judiciously-chosen material.

Since I am neither a musician nor a performer, I have to remember that those who are need to keep their live audiences in mind. Among other considerations you have to give your audiences what they know along with what they don't. This is the only explanation for the inclusion of Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman's "He Stopped Loving Her Today." There is nothing wrong with that song, which George Jones cut in a for-the-ages version that no one who's heard has ever forgotten. It's just that after Jones was finished with it, there was and is no point in anyone else's doing it ever again. The one here isn't bad, just unnecessary.

As Nashville songwriters go Allen Reynolds is pretty good. But his "Ready for the Times to Get Better," a Crystal Gayle hit back when Crystal Gayle had hits, just seems kind of airless, neither particularly good nor particularly bad, with no other discernible purpose than to occupy space on the country radio of its time. On the other hand, Ronnie Reno's novelty number "Boogie Grass Band," which Conway Twitty charted way back when (I'm not interested enough to look up the date), was dumb then, and hasn't gotten any smarter since. And don't get me started on Eddie Raven's schmaltz-fest "Thank God for Kids," which is as advertised.

On the other hand, Jordan and associates, proving yet again what they can do with the right stuff, feature a couple of folksinger-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey's classics, the exquisite "Lost River" and the vividly told "Cherokee Fiddle." It's too bad, though, that Murphey's last name is misspelled in both of the credits.