In paying tribute to her roots, Martina McBride doesn't merely cover a selection of classic country favorites, she conjures an entire era. You'd swear that was Floyd Cramer playing piano on the album-opening "You Win Again," and Chet Atkins picking guitar on the following "I'll Be There." The steel guitar featured so prominently throughout Timeless recalls a time when country sounded distinctly--and proudly--different from rock, while the background chorale on "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Once a Day," as well as the soaring strings on "Rose Garden," remind one of the "countrypolitan" crossover sound. Except for a delicate rendering of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone," McBride's versions don't really add anything to the originals, because these songs weren't missing anything. But she makes "I Don't Hurt Anymore" sound as fresh and pure as it did when Hank Snow recorded it more than a half-century ago, while her rendition of "Till I Can Make It on My Own" has all the brittle conviction that Tammy Wynette invested in it. --Don McLeese

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