Father Ron Clingenpeel is both a genuine clergyman (a retired Episcopal priest) and a genuine scholar of folk music; he hosts a folk show on WWOZ and here presents an album of original and borrowed songs steeped in the classic influences of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. This album’s opening title track, about a love that goes on when one partner has passed, serves notice that there won’t be any slick updates here: It’s Father Ron’s rough-edged voice and honest delivery, along with a haunting tune, that makes it work.

Producer Andre Bohren captures the community vibe of a singalong-type performance, with a number of familiar names lending a voice (Cole Williams and Debbie Davis’ harmonies, Jack Craft’s cello and Gina Forsyth’s fiddle all add some nice touches). The most familiar number, “St. James Infirmary” includes a few, locally slanted verses that you probably haven’t heard elsewhere. “Another Night” is a dark but non-judgmental song about addiction; “Don’t Let the Fire Die” is new but sounds like a decades-old resistance song, invoking martyrs from Martin Luther King to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; the lyric urges you to keep the dream of equality alive, just as Seeger might have.

It’s not all somber and reverent though: “Blues #42” is gritty and upbeat, harking back to the rock and Cajun music that Clingenpeel played in his younger days. “Damned Roaches” gives a familiar subject pretty much what it deserves, and to hear a preacher singing “stomp that critter and kick his ass” is worth the cost of admission alone.