Martina McBride, Timeless

Bill Ford · From: Graniteville SC Aiken

This is one you got to have, sounds like old original masters reissued. Nothing but instruments, amps(no fx, no embelishments)and the knocked out voice of Martina. This is the one she showcased on the Opry a while back. Brings back a lot of memorys of the "stuff" we did when I was pickin way back when, sounds like one of the sets we would have done.Oh yeh, Paul did a fantastic job coping licks from the original players as well as some of his own material, as did all the pickers.

Bill

Mark Eaton · Posted 21 Dec 2005 6:03 pm

It's a great one alright.

Bill-you must be busy with other stuff in recent months besides the Forum. This album has been the subject of about 10 different threads since it has come out!

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Mark

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Yup. My first CD purchase in about 10 years. Money well spent. Was indiff to her until "Timeless".

Now her voice is singing the way I think it was intended for.

And Paul Franklin's unbounded taste on steel
seals this CD. He doesn't go wild, and keeps within the historic aspects of when the songs were recorded. What an ear and fine touch.

Thanks Martina.

Charles French · From: Ms.

Ya'll killing me. For crying out loud, she's doing "covers". Hired the best studio players in the world and sings quite well. She didn't discover the fountain of youth or re-invent the wheel.

There's a little 16 year old girl that sings every 3rd saturday night at the old Blackhawk School building in Blackhawk, Ms. that can sing circles round Martina and sings nothing but the great old tunes.

Nobody raves about Merle doing all those great Lefty Frizell songs. Nobody is raving about Red Knuckles doing all the old standards, etc. I'll be willing to bet a dollar to a dime that her doing this CD ain't gonna change a doggone thang as some may think! Heaven forbid I gotta listen to Kenney Chesney or a host of other no country singing idiots starting to do covers because of Martina's effort. If she wants to do something impressive she needs to write her own material in the same vein! Covers, so what! Thats what American Idol contestents do!

My son and I were listening to Ray Charles do "I Love You So Much It Hurts Me" and I told him I had alot of different versions of the song. He says, which one is the best. I told him there's nothing that compares to the original but they are all good in the different artist interpretation.

Sorry, but I just don't see anything so mind blowing about Martina doing these cover tunes. I'll stay tuned for the whole country music industry to change because of this CD and then I will gladly pay up!

Howard Tate · From: Leesville, Louisiana, USA, R.I.P.

Good grief!

Charles French · From: Ms.

Charlie Brown!

Bowie Martin · From: Wilson, NC USA 27896

I think its great that "Nashville" even let her do a standards CD - did not think they let that kind of stuff be recorded or released anymore. Think it is good for steel, real country music, and even Martina.
If she never does anything country again, at least she did it once, and that would be a great improvement if each of the top artist would be doing the same. I'm all for it. Maybe if some people hear real country music some, they might like it!!

Joe Casey · From: Weeki Wachee .Springs FL (population.9)

OK so she is doing covers.When the new material written starts to have a foul smell why not go to the well with whats been proven and what has stood the test of time,Classics. .. Many artist have done this and still will.. Good songs get done over and over and by the looks of the sales she as well as others have long tried to point out, the market for good old songs never dies. If Country music finally dies it will be because top rated Artist such as Martina don't make these efforts. Fortunatly this compilation has great studio musicians efforts that are complimenting Martinas efforts.One can vote against it by not buying it however the buyers have already made a statement. Lets hear "Timeless part two".

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Smiley 23-9 Crank&pull&push pro model Deluxe with auto voice tuner and string changer.500ft.roll.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Tho, I sort of see Mr. French's point - by a quick search, I counted nine new posts started on this very subject in the past thirty days. It's a GREAT album, O.K.? I bought it, O.K.? O.K.? Maybe we can start another record-breaker like the "ZB" thread, only this time see how many DIFFERENT times we can start up the same subject. Oh, wait... ET vs. JI....

Mark Eaton · Posted 25 Dec 2005 5:55 pm

Thank you, David!

Here is one of the other posts I wrote about it:

"I have heard that Paul also used an MSA SuperSlide non-pedal on a couple of tracks on the Martina record.(This has to be about the 10th thread on the Forum that discusses this album).
Quote from John McBride from the liner notes: "...and no guitars or amps newer than 1965." Apparently this applies only to "regular" guitars and not those of the steel category?

I love the album.

That said, I don't know if the "Nashville" execs look at the success as a call by the fans for a throwback to more traditional sounding country-or if they look at it as a success story combining a popular singer who has a very good voice, is attractive to look at, and was very smart to choose some of the great songs in the history of the music. Maybe the're saying "those folks at Sony Music/RCA are pretty sharp, what can we do to jump on the bandwagon" or they might be thinking that "this combination was a good formula, but to go with another singer with new material, instead of classics, and the more traditional sound may not compete with McGraw and Chesney."

Obviously pure speculation on my part."

One of the other things that I recently heard, which perhaps flies in the face of my theory about Martina's record company taking the big risk-is that she actually was the one to put up the money to record it, I would surmise to book the studio time, hire the players, etc.

Charles has a good point about being less than impressed by someone doing an album of covers-but I think this album is exceptional.

Two female country rock singers that come immediately to mind that built a career on songs written by others are Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Emmylou in particular, has championed songwriters that were relatively obscure. More recently, Alison Krauss has done a lot of the same thing. Because someone doesn't write their own material doesn't necessarily mean they should get hammered-Johnny Cash, though he obviously wrote some classics-was an interpreter of other writer's songs on a regular basis.

Martina picked a bunch of obvious classics but really went about it the right way. I bought the package that included the DVD of the making of the album-pretty interesting.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

This CD was one of my Christmas presents! Good, yes, but I think I also see what Charles is trying to say. If I had to guess, this will be a one-shot, and then we'll be right back to status-quo NCS.

The "old sound" is very dear to some of us, myself included, but we're also not dumb enough to think it's coming back as main stream. (It was a nice gesture, though.)

James Cann · From: Phoenix, AZ

Well!

My original thoughts for this post were pretty well knocked to hell by those who beat me to it, so at the expense of sounding hopelessly mundane . . .

great songs, fine singer, solid, legitimate musicianship, interesting liner notes, and since its been playing here since 8:00 this morning, a well-manufactured disc!

PS: Label right in the center, too, not like some I've seen.

Mark Eaton · Posted 25 Dec 2005 10:25 pm

Sorry Donny, the part in my post about vintage instruments and amps had to do with another thread (one of the many) regarding this album-one of the members who did not yet own the cd asked about what info was supplied in the cd booklet regarding the above.

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Mark

Michael Haselman · From: St. Paul

Well, I've been holding out on speaking my mind on this. Here's my take: As good as this is that Martina's making a CD of old classics with great playing, it's more of a "novelty" or "concept" recording. She'll go back to doing her regular stuff on the next CD...nothing wrong with that. If she had come up with original music that had the feel and style of the classics, that would be worth talking about. I'm not trying to dis Martina, because I love her voice in the pop country that she's noted for. I guess I'd challenge her to come up with "Timeless Part II" and so on. I wonder if she could do what Ricky Skaggs did: Abandon pop music completely to be true to your musical self.

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Marrs D-10, Webb 6-14E

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Regarding moony hopes, if there's any one way in which I hope this album might nudge or warp the big-buck execs, it would be towards letting the musicians play complete friggin' solos! The modern model is to let the steel play a one-bar fill, then a tiny Tele twang, then toot-toot on the harmonica, then even the b@njo gets a bar - this is all to signify that it's a "country" song - then the singer starts wanking away about how "country" he is again. Like, the words of the song are SO important there's no TIME to make the MUSIC interesting anymore. Whatever happened to solos?!?

I don't even care if they're not ALL steel solos, even a b@njo player deserves better treatment than that.*

*(Though, maybe... oh never mind)

[This message was edited by David Mason on 26 December 2005 at 01:58 AM.]

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

That's okay, Mark. My comment was sort of along the lines that whether the instruments and amps were pre '65 or not wouldn't make any difference at all. In other words, I think that this "vintage equipment" stuff in instruments and amps is mostly smoke and mirrors (advertising hype).

The guy that thinks that he can recognize the sound of a '64 Tele or '64 Twin as being different or better than any other Tele or Twin is slightly delusional, IMHO.

Chuck Cusimano · From: Weatherford, Texas, USA

And so this the ump-teenth time I've gotten on MY soap box to praise Martina for her efforts, and it prpbably won't be my last.
The way I heard it, Her producer wouldn't take on the task, and didn't want her to do it at all. So SHE paid for it herself!.. For that reason alone I'd like to see it sell MILLIONS.

As far as the fact she did "COVER" tunes, I see that as her way of connecting with the older BUYING audiences. They wouldn't (more than likely) spend their money on songs they never heard before, because of what kind of trash is being put out as COUNTRY MUSIC in Nashville these days. A lot of these folks haven't bought an album in Years. Maybe her next one will have some origional GOOD Country music on it. I'm writing REAL Country music everyday, and I sure hope there's a market for it somewhere. I know of some other writers still churning out good country songs, and you can't get a record producer (In Nashville) to let an artist record it.

I'll agree with one thing said up above here by someone else: I don't want to hear Kenny Chesney trying to sing traditional country music. I was not a fan of Martina McBride until this album surfaced. I read the notes in the insert, and find that she came up in a REAL Country band with her other family members, and these songs on the album hold special meaning to her. I think she did a superb job of choosing musicians,and songs for the album. She did a wonderful job of pouring out her heart in every selection. AND, best of all, She did a wonderful job of letting Nashville know that it can be done like in the "Old Days" (No amp, or guitar built after 1965, and Analog recording).