At 83, Jim Kewskin sounds like a much younger man singin’ with friends and family on his latest LP. The music on Never too Late: Duets with My Friends; however, sounds like it comes from Kweskin’s parents’ wax cylinder collection as he and a crop of female co-vocalists plumb the early 20th century for songs that stand time’s test.

The same can be said for Never too Late, which, while bursting with 18 tracks and more than 70 minutes of music, never once calls for the skip button. Backed by fiddler Suzy Thompson, Dobro and steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, harmonica player Annie Raines, a taut rhythm section and woodwinds including oboe and clarinet, Kewskin joins contemporaries like his former Jug Band collaborator and ex-Jerry Garcia Band vocalist Maria Muldaur and younger women, including his granddaughter Fiona Kewskin to drag 100-year-old music skipping and swinging into the present day.

Even the most casual music lover will recognize such tracks as “Side by Side” and “The Cuckoo;” however, it’s the insanely deep numbers – including “Let’s Get Happy Together” and “Engine 143” – that are real ear openers.

Collecting first and second takes almost exclusively, Never too Late finds Kweskin reveling in the in-studio dynamics, whether singing youthfully by his lonesome, stepping aside to let vocalists like Samoa Wilson and Rose Guerin take over on “Honey in the Rock” and “Mother Earth,” respectively, or calling out soloists and asking for one more chorus, the star of the show shines brightly throughout the album, while leaving plenty of room for his partners to do their thang.