Latest Release
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- 6 SEPT 2024
- 13 Songs
- The Road Less Traveled · 2001
- Cowboys And Dreamers · 2024
- Cowboys And Dreamers · 2024
- Cowboys And Dreamers · 2024
- Petty Country · 2024
- Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90 (Live At The Hollywood Bowl) · 2023
- Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90 (Live At The Hollywood Bowl) · 2023
- Half a Hundred Years · 2021
- Willie Nelson American Outlaw (Live) · 2020
- Willie Nelson American Outlaw (Live) · 2020
Essential Albums
- If you needed to explain to a creature from outer space why earthlings love George Strait, this album would make a pretty useful tool, displaying many of the Texas country giant’s most celebrated gifts. On "She Knows When You're On My Mind", Strait shows off his knack for delivering old-school lump-in-your-throat ballads with a power worthy of George Jones, while the perky "I Ain't Never Seen No One Like You" shows his knack for Western swing.
- You could be forgiven for not immediately thinking George Strait would become as big a star as he did. He was too well-mannered to be honky-tonk, and too understated to be pop. His rockers, such as they were, were tidy and restrained (“The Steal of the Night”), and he never milked a ballad for more feeling than it needed (“Marina del Rey”). In a gallery of cowboys, ramblers and other personalities that pushed emotions to the extreme, Strait presented himself as nothing more than a nice guy in a crisp pair of jeans. He was a traditionalist from the drop. But instead of trying to revive the past, 1982’s Strait From the Heart evokes the core values of country music in ways that feel familiar and timeless. Musically, you can hear the Western swing of Bob Wills (“I Can’t See Texas From Here”, “Heartbroke”) and the gentle countrypolitan of Glen Campbell (“Amarillo by Morning”). But you also get the sheen of soft rock (“Marina del Rey”) and adult contemporary (“Lover in Disguise”) in ways that skirt convention without overtly trying to cross over. Strait From the Heart paved the way for Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley and a host of other artists who managed to capture their moment without embracing trend. But most of all, Strait created a style that allowed country music to grow into the future without sacrificing its past. He later joked that fans would consider anything he did traditional—because traditional is just what a traditionalist does.
Artist Playlists
- The neo-trad titan's deep Texas twang has never failed him.
- He's earned hat-tips from trad-country stars and crossover kings.
- Wry and wistful seasonal ditties and carols from the country star.
- The neo-trad king shows his Western swing side.
- He soaked up the sounds of honky-tonkers and crooners alike.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
Compilations
- 2007
About George Strait
At some point during the early ’80s, country singer George Strait was given a nudge by his then-producer, Jimmy Bowen, to try and liven up his stage act. Strait reportedly obliged not with banter or acrobatics, but by taking off his hat and waving it a few times. Born in 1952 and raised outside San Antonio (he helped his father on the ranch during weekends and summers), Strait started his career in the early ’80s as a stiff-jeaned, cowboy-booted ambassador of “real” country, a singer whose songs—warm, direct, bittersweet and funny—seemed to tap into the genre’s original mandate: Honest music for people getting by. He quickly became one of the steadiest and most enduring voices in country, building a body of work both astonishingly popular and consistent: In the first three decades of his career, for example, Strait placed more than 80 singles in the Top 10 of the Country charts, more than half of which went to No. 1. For as often as Strait has been defined as a traditionalist, his most definitive songs (“All My Ex’s Live in Texas”, “Ocean Front Property”, “Check Yes or No”) never seemed like they were trying to re-capture a lost past so much as evoke the timeless feelings always running underneath the present—a testament, perhaps, to why Strait has managed to stay relevant despite ignoring trends almost completely.
- HOMETOWN
- Poteet, TX, United States
- BORN
- 18 May 1952
- GENRE
- Country