"Talent skips a generation," someone I used to know was wont to declare when the occasion called for it. In his telling this pattern applied to a range of subjects, from a dynasty of brilliant British evolutionary biologists, peppered with some undistinguished members, to a revered honkytonk singer-songwriter and his irritating, modestly gifted -- and more commercially successful, needless to say -- son. I never saw reason to dispute this particular reading of space-time's fluctuations, though there were the periodic exceptions. For example, here.

As functioning human beings Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield) and Ralph Stanley are to be spoken of in the past tense. The former died on April 30, 1983, the latter on June 23, 2016. Both were towering figures in American roots music. Each left behind a catalog of extraordinary recordings. They also had sons who picked up their fathers' distinctive styles of music and vowed to keep them alive and vital.

That's where these artists step on stage and into the recording studio. Born on Sept. 27, 1954, in Chicago, Larry "Mud" Morganfield saw little of his father, who turned him over to other family members, specifically seven uncles and his mother, to raise. Mud did not set out on a career as a musician until, no longer wanting to drive a truck, he took up the profession after Muddy's death. Mud's voice proved almost uncannily like his father's, and his songwriting ability, too.

In Deep Mud, his sixth album since 2008, he continues his ever more satisfying effort to resurrect the genre with which Muddy is associated, namely Delta-based blues in an urban context. Two of the tracks are associated with Muddy but are not overcooked standards; the nearer is "Country Boy," which isn't all that close. The opening Mud original, "Bring Me My Whiskey," hits hard with the punch of an enduring Muddy classic. To operate at this level, he has to be more than a mere mimic. The stuff is strong not only in the content but in the delivery as well. This is why you listen to blues. And also why you will have nothing to complain about.

The bulk of the 14 cuts bristle with the electric down-home textures we are hoping for. There are, however, a small number of soul-blues songs of the kind Mud would have grown up hearing on South Side radio and jukebox. They're pretty good, too. The most unexpected cut, though, is the last, "A Dream Walking," a heartfelt tribute to the late mother who faithfully raised him and his siblings, more like a blues-flavored gospel tune. One does not expect to meet the blues in church.

Mud credits Chicago-blues traditionalist and harp player Studebaker John for making it all work, along with his small, tight band that's played with him on previous recordings. Hard to imagine that he and his crew are going to get even better as time rolls along, but it's clear that's where this operation is going.

In my recent review of Junior Sisk's All Fun & Games in this space (16 August) I outlined a brief post-War II history of the Stanley Brothers until late 1966, when Carter Stanley died. The surviving brother, Ralph, carried on as Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys. Before his death he in turn asked his son Ralph II, already in the band, to take over leadership. Since then they've played the bluegrass circuit, which has embraced them as family, and released albums largely in the original Ralph's Appalachian style, with some of Carter's borrowings from more commercial country songs. In other words, Rollin' on Rubber Wheels (a Carter Stanley composition) is about half mountain sound and half Opry, albeit wholly acoustic.

The younger Ralph's vocals are a generally milder version of his father's, which could sound as if intoned from the Other Side. If you're not a regular Stanley follower, you may recall the rendition of "O Death" at the Klan rally in Oh Brother Where Art Thou? There's nothing quite that, um, grave here, though there could have been if Ralph II's singing had the heft of the Stanley Brothers's dark "Rank Stranger," honored in these grooves. Generally, the current album is broadly country-leaning in its song choices (e.g., the 1964 Lefty Frizzell story-song "Saginaw, Michigan"), though mountain-flavored material is easy enough to find ("Polly's Revenge," a gruesome sequel to the traditional murder ballad "Pretty Polly" which the original Ralph often sang).

As with Mud Morganfield, you will like Ralph II if you like Ralph I. Both musicians clearly absorbed all they needed from their fathers, and now they do their fathers full honor. Though their elders will not be creating new music, their sons will, and that music is already starting to fill big footsteps. Who says there's no life after death?