Various Artists: Hank Williams: Timeless

The tribute-album fad reached critical mass with 1990's Cole Porter tribute and AIDS benefit Red Hot & Blue, and examples of the genre have long since become a music-store staple. Easy to sell (who doesn't want to hear favorite musicians interpreting the music of other favorite musicians) and easy to assemble (what musician doesn't want to pay tribute to an influence), they've also become less meaningful for the same reasons. Used-CD bins are choked with titles like Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix (Seal does "Manic Depression"!), Encomium: A Tribute To Led Zeppelin (4 Non Blondes does "Misty Mountain Hop"!) and Two Rooms: Celebrating The Music Of Elton John And Bernie Taupin (Bruce Hornsby does "Madman Across The Water"!). All those songs, all those pairings, and so few of them make sense, much less work. Fortunately, a few inspired albums prove that life is left in the format. In recent years, country music has had the best of it, with excellent tributes to Jimmie Rodgers and Gram Parsons. Timeless, a well-considered and even better-performed salute to Hank Williams, continues the trend. From Bob Dylan's album-opening "I Can't Get You Off Of My Mind" on, Timeless never suffers from the phoned-in quality that tends to dominate tribute albums. The subject doesn't hurt: Largely avoiding more obvious choices, the disc makes clear just how deep his song catalog goes, and how open to interpretation it is. Williams' grandson, Hank III, plants himself firmly on the traditionalist end of the spectrum, offering a version of "I'm A Long Gone Daddy" that updates the sound quality and little else. Beck's haunted, dirge-like take on "Your Cheatin' Heart" stands at the other end, but wherever the other contributors fall on the scale, they hold their own. The end product is a tribute in the truest sense. Few attempt the trademark catch of Williams' voice. Sheryl Crow gets it right, but her lighthearted take on "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" seems to willfully avoid the heartbreaking implications of Williams' words; perhaps she recognized that no one could improve on the original. Like the album, her track works well on its own, and even better as a signpost pointing back to the source.