CD Review: George Strait – Cowboy Love Songs – by Alexander Schulz for Country Music News International
·
You Look So Good In Love
·
The Chair
·
I Cross My Heart
·
You’re Something Special To Me
·
Carrying your love with me
·
Run
·
Check Yes Or No
·
If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t
Livin’)
You should normally be a little careful
with superlatives, but if the country bard George Strait has been given the
nickname “King of Country” for more than 100 million records sold in
the USA, this does not appear to be unjustified.
For George Harvey Strait, who was born in
Texas in 1952, the musical entry was initially in a school band. During his
three years of military service in Hawaii following a drop out of college, he
remained loyal to music and played there in a country band. In addition to a
subsequent agricultural degree, George played with another band in Texas clubs
and tried the first step into the music industry with a small label in 1976,
but the success initially failed to materialize. After completing his studies,
however, he was able to make a few demos with the record label MCA, which took
him on at the age of 29.
After the first single “Unwound” made it
straight to the top 10 single country charts, the following album “Strait
Country” also became a success.
In 1982 the Texas singer had his first
number 1 country hit with the title “Fool Hearted Memory”, the album
“Right Or Wrong” made it to the official album
charts in 1984.
Success followed one after another, and of
the more than 20 albums released between 1981 and 1999, most achieved platinum
status. In addition, many singles, rather unusual for country numbers, even
made it into the official single charts.
If you look at Strait’s career, one
superlative is chasing the next: In addition to the more than 100 million
records sold in the beginning, there are 13 multiple platinum, 22 platinum and
another 11 gold awards and 88 American music awards up to 2015. In addition to
being included in the “Country Music Hall of Fame”, he was finally
named “Artist of the Decade” by the “Academy of Country
Music”.
While other country musicians tend to go
mainstream, Strait has always remained true to traditional music or has revived
it (“neo-traditionalism”), which is probably the secret of its
success.
The CD “Cowboy Love Songs”, which
was released a few years ago in collaboration with the jeans company
“Wrangler”, contains 8 tracks that show a cross-section of Strait’s
musical work.
And fans of traditional country music get
exactly what they expect on the album: handmade, honest music without frills
and experiments.
It is difficult to highlight individual
titles, but my favorite is the beautiful ballad “I Cross My Heart” –
a love song not only for cowboys.