The Psalms is a textbook case of how to mold the rawest materials into a thing of beauty and grace. The backstory goes like this: While producer Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith’s longtime guitarist and producer of Suzanne Vega and many more) was working with the late country legend Waylon Jennings on his memoir, he overheard Jennings’ wife, country singer Jessi Colter (best known for her 1975 hit “I’m Not Lisa”), creating impromptu songs on the piano from Old Testament Psalms. In 2007, after Jennings’ passing, Kaye recorded Colter, again spontaneously putting the Psalms to music. In the years since, Kaye tinkered with the recordings only minimally, and this is the result.

The Psalms is gospel music in its purest state. The text isn’t reworked—these are the Psalms as Colter saw them on the page—or an attempt to embellish beyond what Kaye and Colter felt might put the words and piano into a deeper context. On several tracks, Kaye layers in his own guitar, bass or pedal steel. Keyboard legend Al Kooper gives a handful of tunes additional soul via his Hammond organ (and, on one Psalm, 45, “synthesizer, French horn, electric piano, lead guitar, locusts”), Bobby Previte touches up some tracks with drums and percussion, and Jenni Muldaur is among the background vocalists.

The arrangements range from the droning opener, “Psalm 150 Praise Ye the Lord,” brought to a crescendo by Previte’s cymbals and timpani, to the soulful reading Colter gives “Psalm 23.” The performances are subtle and never raucous, but they teem with life and, of course, the true faith that Colter brings to each heartfelt rendition.