Texas native and Shreveport mainstay Steve Howell is one of those musicians who do double duty as scholars of a sort. He must have paid for this album’s fairly fat liner notes booklet from his own pocket, and they’re invaluable for neophytes who have no idea what “Stagger Lee” was originally about or who Irving Berlin is, as well as for experienced roots-music lovers who’ve never heard of “Blind Teddy” Darby or Peck Kelly’s Bad Boys. It’s only fitting that the guitarist would be so expansive in explaining these standards and rarities, because his ultimate goal is to remind you that, yes, there was a time when country music, the blues, pop, and jazz were all the same thing, or near enough to count.

Produced by Darren and Joe Osborn – yes, the Wrecking Crew bassist – featuring the father-son duo as his rhythm section, and sporting an ultra-tasteful selection, Howell’s guitar and arrangements can almost fade into the background at times. But that’s a testament to the natural ease of his Chet Atkins-styled picking and the jazz trio format, which seamlessly blends these artifacts of Americana together. He reimagines Bing Crosby’s “Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)” as a foxtrot, and reworks “St. James Infirmary” into a dark yet almost offhand cowboy lope, featuring nods to various folk interpretations and a wink at Blind Willie McTell’s “Dying Crapshooter Blues.”

Actually, that fretwork is tasty enough to make you wonder why he didn’t just cut an instrumental album. Like many guitarists, Howell’s voice is little more than a pleasant but unremarkable afterthought. The intros to “Wrap Your Troubles” and the absolutely gorgeous cover of Satchmo’s “When it’s Sleepy Time down South” convey so much emotion on their own that the verses are almost anticlimactic. When he switches into a higher register, however, as on Darby’s “I Never Cried (Built Right On The Ground),” Steve finds a gentle yearning that suits him well, sort of a cross between Clapton and Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson. That won’t matter much to most fans, of course, especially those wanting to hear Osborn play on absolutely anything again, but there’s true gold just beyond the pastoral horizon of “Out Of The Past,” and with the right vocalist – or without any – he wouldn’t need to explain the past at all.