Tony Trischka ends Earl Jam 2 with Bruce Molsky and Sally Love singing wistfully on “I Wish We Had our Time Again.” 

The song, like all the tracks on this LP and its similarly guest-laden predecessor, is culled and transcribed from rare home recordings by Earl Scruggs and John Hartford, who loom over Trischka on the cover. It’s nostalgic for a time when more of life lay ahead than behind, the future seemed limitless and all your friends were still living. 

Despite a cadre of young-gun featured guests including Molly Tuttle and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (“Red River Valley”), Billy Strings (“Gentle on My Mind”) and a subdued, nearly unidentifiable Sierra Ferrell on “I Still Miss Someone,” the septuagenarian banjoist Trischka and collaborators that include a raft of fiddlers (Jason Carter, Darol Anger, Brittany Haas, Stuart Duncan and Michael Cleveland), guitarist Bryan Sutton and Sam Bush on mandolin, create old-time music that mostly longs for old times. 

And there is joy in that. And lighter fare, such as the SteelDrivers playfully tackling “Long John,” Trischka stepping out solo on “Boil that Cabbage Down” and Bush taking himself quite unseriously at the mic as he sings “Here Comes the Bride” accompanied by Cleveland and Trischka, balances out the melancholia to cut Earl Jam 2’s bitter with some sweet.