Nanci Griffith loved a crowded credits list. Never shy about paying homage to her collaborators, inspirations, and friends, the singer-songwriter manifested her most inclusive project yet on this collection of covers, her first album for Elektra. Unpretentious and straightforward, the release finds the Griffith leveraging her success not to delve inward but instead to foster collaboration—an unlikely embrace by a singer and songwriter who was plenty capable of songcraft and performance all on her own. A number of the songs are classics by the usual suspects: Van Zandt, Dylan, Guthrie, Prine. The collaborators, though, span generations and genres. Dylan himself does appear, playing harmonica on “Boots of Spanish Leather,” but there are much less likely unions: Guy Clark joins Griffith to sing Guthrie’s lighthearted Dust Bowl migrant’s anthem “Do Re Mi,” and Iris DeMent and Emmylou Harris chime in for the Carter Family chestnut “Are You Tired Of Me Darling,” crafting one of many mini-Trio redux projects. Blink and you might miss Alison Krauss playing violin on “Woman of the Phoenix”; that’s how packed this album is with Griffith’s chosen musical community. Griffith also loved to credit the authors she admired: this album cover shows the singer holding a copy of the Truman Capote novel from which it draws its name. The song texts she pulls from here paint a portrait of an artist who was unafraid of the familiar, but also a little too naturally obtuse to fit neatly in any particular category—country, folk, and pop blend on this album for an easy listening experience that doesn’t cut any corners. If the Odetta-led take on “Wimoweh” is a little heavy on ’90s Starbucks-filtered world music for contemporary ears, its omnivorous ambition is still commendable. Otherwise, the album’s range is almost totally timeless, smart and deeply felt reprisals of songs that deserve them.