The Stanley Brothers - The Definitive Collection (1947-1966)

The word “timeless” so often automatically precedes the equally overused word “classic” that the phrase “timeless classic” has become a bit of a joke. What does it mean anyway? That people through the ages are destined to go ape over something that was created in a time and space so universal that the date of its inception will forever be impossible to determine? On a more practical level, it could signify some old record that a parent can induce its child to listen to without reprisal, although I doubt that artifacts such as Beatles records are works of eternal duration. Nor, for that matter, is the mountain music of the Stanley Brothers. Still, the 60 recordings collected by Time-Life for this 3-CD box set, spanning the years 1947-1966, come from a place that seems, if not outside time, apart from the crescendo of civilization known as the post-Industrial age. In other words, it is hard to tell which of these tracks were recorded in the forties and which from the fifties or sixties. The music is all of a piece, coming from the Virginia mountains where the brothers were raised. Some of it has been unheard outside of the rural South, and some of it has entered the national consciousness through movies such as “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and the never-ending performing career of Bob Dylan, who has covered songs such as “Stone Walls and Steel Bars,” “White Dove,” and “Rank Stranger” in recent years. There is 20 years of music in this box, but the life of these songs is not limited to those years. I suppose that's why some people might call them "timeless classics." I’d rather just call it mountain music. [www.timelife.com]