A name like Junior League Band, pretty close to generic, provides no clue to what one is likely to hear once one turns on the player. Well, maybe that the musicians are young (seven in all, in their 20s, one infers from the biographical data). It turns out that the JLB is ... well, a roots outfit, fusing rock, folk, blues, pop, country and jug-band sounds. That could describe lots of rock groups, of course, prominently including the Grateful Dead, The Band and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The JLB, however, sounds like none of them. It boasts its own distinctive approach, not much like anybody else's.

Since Lissy Rosemont, the endearingly quirky lead vocalist, wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, one presumes that the band is her brainchild. She hails from the South and from a musically active family; her father is an old-time and bluegrass fiddler who regularly performs at the famous Union Grove, North Carolina, festival. Rosemont's instrument is the banjo, which she does not play Appalachian or Scruggs style but rather in a bluesy fashion learned -- initially anyway -- from recordings of early African-American songsters who adapted that instrument to the emerging blues form in the early 20th century.

Rosemont and the band fuse roots genres in a way that most of the time no single one of them dominates any song. An exception is the lead cut, "South Carolina Blues," clearly drawing on the model of Furry Lewis in his jug-band moments, and an all-around knockout. "With Hannah," led by Kailan Yong's fiddle and Rosemont's banjo, is the sole instrumental, and also fairly traditional-sounding.

The sexy "Kiss You in the Morning," on the other hand, is the sort of country-pop song that would elevate the artistic and IQ levels of what passes for country radio these days. "Folding Cash" is said to be about Lead Belly, but I'll be damned if I can make out the lyrics. Sounds good, though. Other material, such as the atmospherically pop "Smokies," reaches toward the experimental.

Mitchell Williams fo Govena (that's "for Governor," by the way; there is no Mitchell Williams in the band) has a little something for most discerning tastes. Even in an era when young bands strive to accommodate tradition with innovation, it stands out for its creative ambition and reached grasp.