Hymns need be neither ancient nor religious to speak to the depth of one’s humanity. Darrell Scott understands this truism naturally and put that understanding to work on New Modern Hymns, a covers album created in 2007, taken out of print in 2013 and, now, resurrected for streaming. 

A secular hybrid of gospel-bluegrass music without drums, the new New Modern Hymns opens with a bonus track: Scott’s long-lost redo of Cat Stevens’ “I Wanna Live in a Wigwam.” MIA for two decades, this 2004 recording stands out for its traditional rhythm section and tilt toward folk-rock. But despite its obvious differences from the subsequent material, “Wigwam” serves as a fine on-ramp to Hymns as Scott originally imagined it and he and Dirk Powell, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Ronnie McCoury, Dan Dugmore et. al originally played it. 

Plumbing the songbooks and/or discographies of Joni Mitchell (“Urge for Going”), Waylon Jennings (“Out Among the Stars”), Gordon Lightfoot (“All the Lovely Ladies”), Hoyt Axton (“The Devil”) and Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, respectively, on “American Tune” and “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met),” Scott is as adept at turning the divine, human as on Kris Kristofferson’s “Jesus Was a Capricorn” as he is at making John Hartford’s lament for old, cool Nashville, “Nobody Eats at Linebaugh’s Anymore,” sound like a chronicle of a crucifixion.   

Of course, having the Fisk Jubilee Singers – alongside other guest vocalists including Del McCoury, Alison Krauss, Tim O’Brien, Mary Gauthier, John Cowan and others – simplifies the job.