Latest Release
- 6 SEPT 2024
- 13 Songs
- Troubadour · 2008
- Honky Tonk Time Machine · 2019
- Honky Tonk Time Machine · 2019
- Greatest Hits · 1982
- Strait From the Heart · 1982
- Carrying Your Love With Me · 1997
- Strait Out of the Box · 1995
- Honky Tonk Time Machine · 2019
- Blue Clear Sky · 1996
- 50 Number Ones · 1983
Essential Albums
- While it doesn’t quite have the impact of the previous year’s Blue Clear Sky, Carrying Your Love With Me displays George Strait’s ability to deliver a diverse, quality collection of songs even as he approaches his 20th year of recording. “Carrying Your Love With Me,” “She’ll Leave Your With a Smile,” and “Today My World Slipped Away” combine emotional climaxes with catchy choruses, proving that Strait is a master of the modern country ballad. “Won’t You Come Home (And Talk to a Stranger)” and “That’s Me (Every Chance I Get)” are perfectly crafted and resolutely old-school slices of honky-tonk, while the splendid “I’ve Got A Funny Feeling” is the kind of song that makes you wish Strait would make an all-bluegrass album. As usual, the magic isn’t only in the material, but how it’s delivered. Every song rings with a maximum of conviction and sincerity, yet everything Strait does has a low-key, easygoing air about it. The secret to Carrying Your Love With Me, and Strait’s career in general, is his ability to remain humble and his refusal to sing any song he doesn’t believe with his whole being.
- 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.
- Explore an enticing string of Lone Star love affairs.
- Wry and wistful seasonal ditties and carols from the country star.
- Listen to the hits performed on the blockbuster tour.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
- 2007
- 2006
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.
- FROM
- Poteet, TX, United States
- BORN
- 18 May 1952
- GENRE
- Country