McBride makes time for country classics
Phyllis Stark

NASHVILLE—After establishing herself as one of country music’s top female artists, Martina McBride decided to pay homage to the classic country music on which she was raised. Her new RCA album, “Timeless,” contains covers of 18 well-loved classics. The CD, which hits stores October 18, includes such tunes as Jeanne Pruett’s “Satin Sheets,” Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” Connie Smith’s “Once a Day” and Lynn Anderson’s “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden,” which is the project’s first single. It is No. 26 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart this week.
McBride enlisted Dwight Yoakam to sing harmony vocals on “Heartaches by the Number,” which gave both Ray Price and Guy Mitchell hits, both in 1959. She also recruited Dolly Parton to duet on Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone.” “I don’t feel like I’m setting out to do any heroic preservation,” McBride says of the project. “I just love this music ... I did songs that felt like home to me.”
On October 22, McBride, a member of the Grand Ole Opry for 10 years, will be the first artist given a full hour of performance time on an Opry broadcast. The special show, to air on GAC, will feature McBride performing the “Timeless” songs with other Opry members and guests, including some of the songs’ original artists. Price is among those confirmed to participate.
RISKY ENDEAVOR?
McBride is a proven hitmaker at country radio: Since her first RCA release in 1992, she has landed 18 top 10 hits on Hot Country Songs, including five No. 1s. Still, some radio programmers believe an all-covers album can be a tricky move even for such an established artist as McBride.
Country KRST Albuquerque, N.M., program director Eddie Haskell says such a project is “a little risky from an airplay standpoint. Realistically, how many remakes in a row can be singles?” “I think it could be risky,” agrees Clear Channel/Austin regional VP of programming Mac Daniels, who also thinks it has the potential to “be a big hit.”
McBride says she never considered the business side of the equation when making her eighth studio album, focusing exclusively on the music. “I really don’t know what’s going to happen with it,” she admits. “I have no idea if it’s going to be commercially successful or not, but I wasn’t really concerned with that, which was a freeing feeling.” The album’s songs date back as far as 1951. The newest song McBride recorded for the project was Tammy Wynette’s 1976 hit “Til I Can Make It on My Own.”
NOODLING AROUND
Rather than going into the recording process with a long list of songs in mind, McBride and the musicians spent a lot of time noodling around in the studio trying things out that McBride or one of the musicians would suggest.
Once they decided to record something, they started each session by spinning a copy of the original recording, and sometimes other versions when the song had been a hit for multiple artists. Then, they would create what McBride calls a “blueprint” for the song, “always paying respect to the original,” she says. For the most part, McBride stays true to the originals, because, she says, her goal was not so much to update the songs as to pay tribute to them, their writers and the original artists.
She has received mild criticism for that decision. KRST’s Haskell says of her take on “Rose Garden”: “She didn’t really make it her own ... It really is a clone of the original. I would like to have seen her update it somewhat.” “These aren’t my songs,” McBride explains. “My intention wasn’t to make them Martina McBride songs.” Regardless of his opinion, Haskell says the song is performing “phenomenally” at KRST and generating “great listener response.”
McBride, the reigning Country Music Assn. female vocalist of the year, cut 24 tracks, then had to narrow the field to 18 for the final CD. But most of the remaining songs will not go to waste. Four are included as bonus tracks on a custom version of the project for Target stores. An exclusive limited-edition album for Wal-Mart will feature a 30-minute DVD chronicling the making of “Timeless.”