George Strait Remains One of the Most Popular Artists in Country

It’s pretty common in country music each week for someone to receive a new Certified Gold or Platinum record from the RIAA for something. It’s pretty rare that an artist receives ten of them at a time though, but that’s what’s happened for both George Strait and Chris Stapleton recently, speaking to the continued longevity and popularity of their music.
Universal Music Group Nashville recently played catch up with multiple artists who had RIAA Certifications coming to them. The new certifications were officially announced on July 15th. Kacey Musgraves and her breakout song “Merry Go ‘Round” was officially Certified Double Platinum. Dierks Bentley also received a Double Platinum Cert for “Different For Girls.” Eric Church also received multiple new certifications, as did Jon Pardi.
But George Strait came out tied with the biggest haul. Despite not being able to hear him on the radio anymore, George Strait remains one of the most popular artists is country music. As has been verified by recent market research, older songs continue to rise in popularity and market share compared to newer ones, and that gulf is continuing to grow as today’s consumers continue to show preference in older music. Older songs now make up 72% of music consumption, and rising.
Look at this haul of new RIAA Certifications for George Strait:
1. “Give It Away – Certified Platinum
2. “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar” – Certified Gold
3. “It Just Comes Natural” – Certified Gold
4. “I Can Still Make Cheyenne” – Certified Platinum
5. “I Got a Car” – Certified Platinum
6. “How ‘Bout The Cowgirls” – Certified Gold
7. “Carried Away” – Certified Gold
8. “Easy Come, Easy God” – Certified Gold
9. “Write This Down – Certified Platinum
10. “Love Without End, Amen” – Certified Platinum
Gold = 500,000 in sales, downloads, and streaming equivalents. Platinum = 1 million in sales, downloads, and streaming equivalents.
Interesting that the new certifications include George Strait’s song “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar” from his most recent album Honky Tonk Time Machine released in 2019. That means ol’ King George is still minting hits. The song actually did surprisingly well on radio, peaking at #17. It was written by Strait himself, with son Bubba, and long-time collaborator Dean Dillon.
Further evidence of Strait’s continued popularity can be found on the albums charts. This week, Strait’s 50 Number Ones is #13 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, beating out many new titles from mainstream country’s current top stars. Last week 50 Number Ones was at #15, and it has been generally hovering within that same range for months now. Whenever someone streams a George Strait song, it often gets counted via the 50 Number Ones album, and people are streaming songs from George Strait a lot.
As times goes on and today’s consumers continue to grow increasingly frustrated with the lack of creativity, roots, and soul in today’s music, expect to see the back catalogs of guys like George Strait and other older country acts continue to remain popular, and perhaps even grow in popularity, with Gold and Platinum Certifications following.
Radio may no longer play these songs, but fans still do. Meanwhile, the #1 song on country radio this week was a track called “Damn Strait” by Scotty McCreery, written by Jim Collins and Trent Tomlinson. It’s a tribute song to King George. So even when George Strait isn’t on the radio, he still is, and his name is being shared all across the country radio format. Though nostalgia is a strong force in all of music, it’s an especially important component to country music, making older country artists even more poised for retrospective listening.
This also presents a different way of thinking about the effort to “save country music.” As opposed to just focusing on new artists coming up to challenge the mainstream, the back catalogs of country legends coming up from behind could be another, with artists, songs, and albums forgotten by mainstream country radio rising from the dead as new listeners discover these older artists, and older listeners continue to show favor with country legends as opposed to the new crop of popular country performers.
Country radio may have put George Strait out to pasture some years ago. But he remains one of the most popular artists in country music as his songs withstand the test of time.
– – – – – – – – – –
For those curious of Chris Stapleton’s new RIAA Certifications since he tied George Strait:
1. “Cold” – Certified Gold
2. “Second One To Know – Certified Gold
3. “Was It 26” – Certified Gold
4. “Millionaire” – Certified Double Platinum
5. “Fire Away” – Certified Triple Platinum
6. “You Should Probably Leave – Certified Platinum
7. “The Devil Named Music” – Certified Gold
8. “Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore” – Certified Gold
9. “Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” – Certified Gold
10. “Starting Over” – Certified Double Platinum
July 23, 2022 @ 10:16 am
Damn Strait!!! I love this! King George is still the King of Country Music!
July 23, 2022 @ 10:28 am
Good news about George! Didnt Mike and the Moonpies have a song ‘Damn Strait, Damn Jones’, maybe not the title but I think they bear Scotty to the punch!
July 23, 2022 @ 11:52 am
Yes they did. There are a few songs that play off the “Damn Strait” idea. I have mixed feelings about the Scotty McCreery song. But hey, if it turns some folks on to George Strait, I’m all for it.
July 23, 2022 @ 4:16 pm
20 years from now — from Ada Rhett Atkins.
????????
Let’s Pardi
It’s my last night lonely,
Working on the Night Shift as long as she ain’t in it.
I’ll be up all night tending to this heartache.
July 23, 2022 @ 5:17 pm
And, forget about the Blake
????????????
Yeah, forget Blake.
Let’s go get a chocolate shake.
And to burn off the calories, later on we’ll make, make.
: D There you go, a mainstream country hit.
Somebody call Nashville …
July 23, 2022 @ 7:29 pm
Well the point of a tribute song like “Damn Strait” is to use their song titles as lyrical references.
So your Blake song could be modified with references such as:
Dear Blake, God Gave me You but I still came here to forget about that Neon Light. The Boys Round Here came back as a country boy… Yada yada
July 23, 2022 @ 8:19 pm
: D It’s not my Blake song.
It’s a continuation of your mainstream country smash hit.
You know, like a collaboration …
Maybe you aren’t fluent in smarta**.
It’s passed down in my DNA.
Not my fault
July 23, 2022 @ 9:19 pm
Name dropping songs are stupid and lazy. Itβs like the guy still quoting Anchorman and other 00βs comedies in 2022.
July 24, 2022 @ 9:59 am
Right on Eric. If I had a nickelβ¦
July 24, 2022 @ 4:51 pm
I might grant you lazyβ¦maybe, but itβs definitely not stupid. Humans are nostalgic. We love music, particularly the music of our youth; itβs the soundtrack of our lives. We like songs that remind us of songs that we identify with moments or eras in our lives. If nothing else, pandering to peoplesβ nostalgia is a decent way to make some money.
So, lazy or even greedy? Maybe. But definitely not stupid.
July 24, 2022 @ 5:41 pm
Nah, I still maintain that they are stupid. Name dropping songs are tv-guide channel levels of songwriting. Theyβre just naming shit like the channel guide station does. I literally cannot comprehend how people can get enjoyment from hear name-dropping songs of their favorite artists. How does that trigger some positive emotion rather than just listening to music from the original artist. Itβs just a cheap way to illicit emotion. Itβs literally like the kid quoting movies to illicit laughs like itβs the same has having a genuine sense of humor. Just go pull up the original artists. I guess name-dropping songs are for the same people who like Greta Van Fleet but never heard of LED Zeppelin.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:11 pm
You can use the word βliterallyβ until youβre blue in the face, and it wonβt change the reality that thereβs decent money to be made from the nostalgia in people, and making money isnβt stupid.
July 25, 2022 @ 1:06 pm
I love the song “Crank the Hank” by Dallas Wayne. “Crank the Hank and crack the Jack”
I also love the song “Merle and George” by Alan Jackson off his independent release in 1987. “Old Merle and George raised my country soul.”
July 23, 2022 @ 10:42 am
Cory Keefe has a different song called “Damn Strait” on his “I’ll Keep It Country” album that’s quite a bit better than McCreery’s.
July 24, 2022 @ 7:15 pm
Sorry to interrupt you from watching the Kardashians and posting viral dancing videos on TikTok but yes some money making things are stupid.
July 24, 2022 @ 7:39 pm
That was meant in response to King Honky
July 23, 2022 @ 2:39 pm
Yea and his concerts are 1k just for the nosebleed section
July 23, 2022 @ 4:40 pm
I went to the show George did with Willie in Austin and bought the cheapest ticket I could find. I don’t recall how much exactly, but it was over $100 and under $200.
July 23, 2022 @ 10:19 pm
I just bought tickets for $120 for next weekend. So no. Moody in Austin with Willie? I canβt speak to that.
July 23, 2022 @ 3:59 pm
People still dig shuffles. Eff the haters.
July 23, 2022 @ 4:06 pm
Strait is due for new music too – I assume?
I read that he has been writing stuff with his son lately
July 23, 2022 @ 4:43 pm
I can’t believe some of those weren’t already gold or platinum. Crazy.
July 23, 2022 @ 7:35 pm
Updates like these never happen in real time. An album can go platinum in 2008 & be announced years later.
July 23, 2022 @ 7:11 pm
I am going to see George and Chris together at Arrowhead next week!
July 23, 2022 @ 10:16 pm
Me too! See you there!
July 23, 2022 @ 9:15 pm
George Straitβs music is perfection. In my opinion itβs still the pinnacle of anything made in the country genre. Nothing else has reached higher.
July 26, 2022 @ 8:04 am
I enjoy George Strait, but I actually like Alan Jackson and Mark Chesnutt better. They just seem a bit more honky-tonk.
July 26, 2022 @ 7:57 pm
Georgeβs music kind of started to go downhill for me in the mid 2000s. Pre 2000s he was great
July 26, 2022 @ 9:28 pm
I’d take Dwight, Willie, Waylon, Joe Ely or Steve Earle over any of them.
July 23, 2022 @ 9:20 pm
I misread this as βGeorge Straitβs Remainsβ and about had a GD heart attack
July 24, 2022 @ 5:50 am
George Strait is the soundtrack of my youth. I’m so happy I got to experience the George Strait Country Music Festival Tours from 1998-2001 in my prime (21-24 yo).
We went to five in four years:
1998 Provo, Utah (I was working that summer in Tooele)
1999 Pittsburgh, PA
2000 Nashville, TN
2001 Atlanta, GA and Pittsburgh, PA
In 2001, Pittsburgh wasn’t originally a tour stop. They took the show away from Minneapolis, MN due to poor ticket sales and gave it to Pittsburgh after the fact that we had already decided to go to Atlanta and booked hotels. The tour was played out in its fourth year, because even in Pittsburgh it was at an amphitheater, not a football stadium like it was 2 years prior. I was working at National Record Mart HQ in Pittsburgh and my boss gave us tickets the week of otherwise we wouldn’t have went after our trip to Atlanta.
The Pittsburgh 1999 show at Three Rivers Stadium is one of my top two concerts line-ups of all-time. There will never be a line-up like this:
George Strait
Tim McGraw (w/ Faith Hill)
Dixie Chicks
Kenny Chesney
Jo Dee Messina
Mark Willis
Asleep at the Wheel
The Pittsburgh stop was the last of the 99 tour and the day (or days) after the Buffalo incident with Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney involving a Mountie’s horse. Faith Hill was a surprise. She probably posted bail in Buffalo and said I’m staying by your side until this tour finishes.
Those were the days.
July 24, 2022 @ 1:43 pm
She was definitely in buffalo for court appearances.
They also had a Lynchburg side stage if you do recall for β99 anyways as I went and was there when they were arrested. Clay Davison and Jerry Kilgore were two of the artists on that.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:03 am
That tends to happen when you sing ACTUAL country music.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:07 am
FYI, my radio station plays a classic country format (60s-90s)….and you can hear at least two Strait cuts a day on there.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:45 am
I think George strait is the best performer of country music thereβs ever been. If you donβt worry about songwriting thereβs never been anyone better at simply singing a country song than George strait. If you asked every country singer ever to sing the same song, he would do the best version of it.
July 24, 2022 @ 10:42 am
100% Iβve made this same point before. Itβs almost as if his singing and take on the songs is greater than the songs themselves which only serves to further elevate brilliantly crafted songs. He was so good and so prolific itβs made many forget about how prolific he has always been.
July 24, 2022 @ 4:55 pm
Trig,
What is your issue with the McCreery song? Itβs not great, but itβs decent compared to the rest of his career.
July 24, 2022 @ 5:28 pm
My issues would be the production is rather contemporary for a song about George Strait, and these songs name dropping songs are a dime a dozen these days. That said, I don’t think it’s bad. That’s why I haven’t really said anything about it, positively or negatively.
Also on tap to be the #1 song on radio for a second straight week this week.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:18 pm
Trig,
For some reason, my question posted as a reply to someone else, but thanks for answering anyway.
McCreeryβs song isnβt nearly as contemporary as most of the singles George released between 2004 and 2012. But I agree itβs not as country as it shouldβve been.
July 24, 2022 @ 5:48 pm
The Scotty McCreery song blows. I even yelled βNooo!β in the car when I first heard him jack βNobody in his right mindβ¦β at the beginning of that song. Thereβs nothing in his catalogue that makes me want to listen to him. Even if the song is comparatively better that his other songs it still doesnβt make this name-dropping dud a pile of BS.
July 24, 2022 @ 5:00 pm
Harris,
Iβve always said George Strait did more with less talent, than nearly any performer in the history of Country Music. As a vocalist, he epitomizes mediocrity from a technical standpoint. But heβs got something that makes him so appealing to listen to. Iβm not entirely sure what it is, but I own every album on CD, up until he went totally pop in the late 2000s.
July 24, 2022 @ 5:44 pm
Iβm not sure what you mean by mediocrity from a technical standpoint. Heβs the Frank Sinatra of country.
July 24, 2022 @ 6:15 pm
Ray Price is the Frank Sinatra of Country. George Strait wouldnβt qualify to be a wart on either one of their a*ses, as a technically gifted vocalist.
And please spare me your tears; I love Strait.
July 24, 2022 @ 7:18 pm
Iβm not sure how you are conflating arguing with a random dumbass on a comment section as βcryingβ
And I too like Ray Price. I think itβs time for you to take your meds and get some rest.
July 24, 2022 @ 8:12 pm
I didnβt say I like Ray Price, even though I do. I said Ray is the Frank Sinatra of Country Music, because he is.
I knew there was a good chance tears would be shed; most SCM readers become very emotional when their favorite performer is criticized. I was therefore trying to help you, by advising you to spare me yours, by ending my comment on a positive note. My attempt at helping you hold back the tears failed, as evidenced by the name calling.
July 25, 2022 @ 9:24 am
King Honky your argument was baseless and ignorant to what country music is, which is largely non-fancy baritone singers (Haggard, Buck, Don Williams, and so on) There is no argument against George Strait being a good singer. You are the one who emotionally tried to make this a “crying session.”
Peace out King Dumbass
July 25, 2022 @ 9:59 am
I know, Eric. It can be frustrating when someone doesnβt feel as strongly as you do about one of your favorite performers.
July 25, 2022 @ 7:59 am
Please don’t bring up someone’s vocal ability when you probably waste kleenex to someone like Kris Kristofferson voice or some of the artists covered on here with awful voices.
But again it’s not like you’re delivering some hot take even though Strait himself has admitted to not being the greatest singers but his voice is definitely far from terrible
July 25, 2022 @ 9:11 am
Kristofferson is very obviously a below average vocalist. I canβt imagine anyone saying otherwise.
Of course my remarks on Strait arenβt a βhot takeβ. Only someone offended by reality, considers reality to be a βhot takeβ, or unconsciously insinuates it could be considered a βhot takeβ, by making a point to say that itβs not.
I like Strait, and love his music. Saying, βheβs definitely far from terribleβ, is a strawman, since I never said, nor even implied he was terrible. Heβs an average vocalist. He took his average vocal prowess, and did way more with it than he should have, if talent is a determining factor in success.
As a side note, Iβll be stealing the phrase, βwaste Kleenexβ from you, and using it as needed. I hope you donβt mind.
July 24, 2022 @ 7:46 am
George strait is one of the greatest singers ever. Still love listening to his music today.
July 24, 2022 @ 12:00 pm
Not to take anything away from King George, but my god, those Stapleton awards⦠literally every track on Traveller must be at least gold now, and some of those platinums are not songs I would have thought of either.
July 24, 2022 @ 4:48 pm
Itβs important to support newer artist as well as older ones.
Yβall should check out Erin Vinacourt. Sheβs got a new album coming out and has an old school country style
July 24, 2022 @ 5:27 pm
Saw her sing with Cody Jinks last week. Looking forward to hearing her new stuff.
July 24, 2022 @ 8:46 pm
Were you in Rosemont Illinois by any chance? Thatβs where I saw her
July 24, 2022 @ 8:50 pm
Cody brought her out at Under The Big Sky Fest in Montana for a song. Pretty cool deal because she was traveling around with Cody, but didn’t have a slot at the fest herself so she was idle. Mentioned her in my recap of the fest. Tried to snap some photos, but I had moved to the back of the crowd to get some crowd shots when she came out so I was too far. Impressive voice for sure, and the crowd loved her.
July 25, 2022 @ 7:02 pm
As usual, King Honky is right about most things. Strait is a good singer. Like Alan Jackson and Chris Stapleton, he’s fairly one-dimensional, but it’s a good dimension. It’s real and it works. No complaints.
I don’t think Ray Price is a Sinatra. Price runs into frustrated opera singer territory. He’s a great technical singer like Tennessee Ernie Ford, also absurdly under-appreciated. Wonderful control, rich tone, and like Price, always in danger of excessive integrity. The Roy Orbison of honky tonk, only more moralizing. He eventually went Elvis with weepy gratitude, which was a shame. Compare Ernest Tubb’s thanks on the back of the guitar. I liked Ray Price when he was scolding people. There’s only room enough in this town for one Jim Reeves.
To me the guy who gets to the intimate talking/acting quality that Sinatra had was Merle Haggard, who had it in spades. As we know, he learned to sing from Lefty Frizzell. Lefty was an unbelievably communicative and agile singer, the Sinatra of his own day, totally unique, even during the advanced cirrhosis when you can practically smell the acetone of decay. Old Lefty was what George Jones became before Nashville put him on a lawn tractor. Faron Young was another example of Late Lefty, a superannuated bull bellowing and mournful in his paddock, forgotten in greatness.
George Jones was of course great and could convey all kinds of emotional territory, but he was especially good at the cornpone grinnin’ that allowed him to hide. You knew from his eyes that he had seen the worst. Willie Nelson, an early smiler too, doesn’t get enough credit as a singer. Peerless writer, of course, but his singing rhythm was innovative early on, due to his loving crazy old Floyd Tillman. Johnny Cash? Great, period, the end, but not because he had a deep voice. You just believed whatever the hell he was singing about. At the tail end of this generation of giants, it’s clear that their gifted youngest brother, Marty Stuart, the Joseph figure, has only gotten better with age.
As for more of the moderns, Dwight Yoakam in his prime was an exceptional athlete. Fast runs and trills, dead-on pitch, a hillbilly bark, one-eyed wounded cynicism, awesome. Garth Brooks was a silly thing by comparison, good at arena sjows but otherwise trying too hard like Freddie Mercury, his soul-mate in Broadway. There was bound to be a reaction. I don’t care for Ronnie Dunn’s hero-worship and nasal keening, but he grew on me because he’s stubborn and always looks sick of our sh*t. Tim McGraw started out as a goofball singer and then matured, despite his fame and happy marriage. Trace Atkins remains a very good singer but unlike McGraw became more of a goofball. I hope he makes more Old Man records because he conveys solidity better than anyone else. Compare Josh Turner, also a bass, but not a cowboy at heart. Wayne Hancock, a Texas retro road dog weirdo, has the loner thing down and should’ve been on Hee Haw. Undeniably a great vocal character and a fine writer. He’s still on the road, duking it out and sounding even more feral.
Then there are the legion of label victims. Chris Young is (was?) an excellent singer but he is pastured to presumably enjoy himself and a bevy of Nashville girls. Joe Nichols, too, less successfully. Billy Currington, Mr. Seventies, same. There are others.
Morgan Wallen is the most convincing young good old boy, even more than Cody Jinks. Cody seems very careful to me for some readon. As a vocalist, Wallen has the greater killer instinct. I’ve listened now to his big streaming song dump and have revised my opinion of him upwards. He belongs in the front row of singers, like the guys who still work on stock cars burning unleaded gas. God bless them all and eff the haters.
Going indie, I like Mike Harmeier more on his recordings: he has that tight anxious sound that Gary Stewart had. Jamey Johnson is tight like that, just in a lower range. He sounds like a guy concentrating very hard at 8 am on convincing police he’s not already drunk. Zeph O’Hora, another baritone, sounds more relaxed. As in medically relaxed. An unsellable combination of mellow and ironical, OHora has a future. Sam Outlaw, too, just in Scandinavia. He sounds like the boy next door with the small elite porn collection. It’s a neat trick, which explains his European audience.
Then there’s Tyler Childers from the dark mountain. Lord alive. An all-American throat of shag-bark hickory. Childers is the voice of first-growth forest, cold and clear as hard water, tough as new shell plastic … I could go on, but it’d beveven more embarrassing. He’s the guy I worry about because he could harden into a vocal stereotype like Chris Stapleton, and I don’t want that, dammit. I want Childers to stay gamey. “Lady May” and “Follow You to Virgie” are master-level country singing, as good and raw as Acuff, and damn anyone who’d make him any different.
Let’s throw some poo because it’s the internet. Shocker, but I don’t think much of today’s young industry guys. Maybe they just need hard time and freedom to become more interesting than Saran Wrap. God knows the Biden Years are spiking T levels to depths not seen since Air Supply. Charley Crockett dresses up and sounds like someone hit him over the head. Zach Bryan sings like the cool older cousin he’s taking after because he knows he should. Sturgill Simpson had promise (like young Waylon) but ultimately, and unlike Waylon, isn’t coachable. Randall King is quite good but has to avoid the money temptations that bagged and tagged Chris Young & Co. The end of that journey is the little canned sausages put out by Luke Bryan. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Let’s say Luke Bryan is the singing equivalent of a Gildan t-shirt. Rhett Somebody, Kane Brown, Jason Aldean Inc., Et Al, all same thing, all in thrall to boardrooms where the artistic and authentic goes to die. Suburban Southern Pop. Just like Taylor Swift and her enablers always wanted.
It’s been said before, but it bears repeating. The strangest thing about young male radio singers is how, like pool boys, interchangeable they are. Are they all made perfectly to spec in Guangzhou? Maybe it’s because the music market is so small that insidwrs have to be extwa cawful (“careful” and “awful”). Back in the heavily populated mass market day, you had to be different to be heard. Now you can’t be unheard. There are tooth whiteners and telecom plans to sell!
For different, you have to look for the indie solitaries, the monks, the lone wolves and wolf-pups. Our Conrad Fisher has a nice voice, a more earnest version of John Hartford. Drew Kennedy (is he a country singer?) is a bit like that, very smart and distinctive, but nice. The danger here is sailing away forever into the Big Bay of Nice. Corb Lund, the Donald Fagen of Alberta, is his own breed of nice, but he’s also a wise-ass like that other literary guy who married Steve Earle’s literary wife. I’m most optimistic about Lund because he is too consumed with work to be anything other than who he is. Literary people rattle around a lot. Witness the struggle of Colter Wall, wolf-pup, to emerge from early caricature. He was raised by two misfit uncles, Marty Robbins and Tom Waits, and he just needs his heart broke to give him more confidence in himself.
Other than that, King Honky is correctamundo.
July 25, 2022 @ 8:49 pm
Very glad you mentioned Conrad Fisher.
Have you had time to listen to, “Trouble With A Hammer?”
So much going on in that song.
Works, on many levels.
July 26, 2022 @ 7:17 am
A good read Kyle. In response to some of the comments: Agree with Honky, Strait didnt have the ” elite” voice in a strict musical sense, but hes still one of the true greats of the genre. Its due to several factors. At his core, Strait is deeply rooted and informed by the western swing of Bob Wills. His Ace in the Hole Band, to this day still plays in that style on numerous songs, live. Its an intoxicating sound for many of us. The leads are always a great combo of steel and fiddle or fiddles. (Twin fiddles are a hallmark of western swing) Straits phrasing of words, and his sense of melody are very strong. He may not have a huge vocal range, but he uses what he has to great effect. Hes equally good on a romantic ballad or a barn burner honky tonk number. So, his appeal isnt restricted to just women, hes universal. Then theres his song choices. When you have guys like Dean Dillon, Hank Cochran and Jim Lauderdale writing for you, theres a wealth of quality material to work with. Strait doesnt get enough credit for his ability to find GREAT songs and make them work in his style. His albums in general are consistently high quality. Overall, hes a guy who found his sound and more or less stuck to it. Unlike the trend chasers. (See Garth Brooks, Tim Mcgraw, Trace Adkins for examples of that) And finally, it should be mentioned, hes authentic to his songs and style. The moniker “King George” is well earned.
July 28, 2022 @ 5:23 pm
I didn’t mention Twitty, Coe, and Paycheck. All great singers. Twitty had Sinatra’s conversational style. So was Shaver, who was more like Acuff mold. Randy Travis, a Lefty. Whitley was less bluegrass singer than a crooner like Faron Young.
July 26, 2022 @ 7:14 pm
Corn Dawg,
Much respect, sir. But come on, buddy; go listen to Price sing βThe Other Womanβ, and tell me that ainβt Sinatra with twang.
July 28, 2022 @ 6:11 am
That’s a great song and great singing. The flutter vibrato doesn’t sound like Sinatra, and Price doesn’t ever sound “conversational” like Sinatra. But no doubt, Price absolutely soars with melody, and that’s something we can miss in music today.
July 26, 2022 @ 9:10 am
Strait is the best at what he does. Strait up country music. Maybe not be the most gifted vocalist around but good lord he can sing them songs like no other. He knows how to pick a song and sing it to give it justice. He is the definition of country music. I think il put on I can still make Cheyenne right now. The fact that fat fuck Chris Stapleton is even mentioned in the same article is a shame.
August 21, 2022 @ 9:32 am
Hi guys
From Morocco, North Africa π
He is popular beyond the United States.
I really think that what he sings is what he is. And he has been singing beautiful values ββfor about forty years
Infinite respect for M. George Strait.
ps: sorry for the mistakes. I am still studying english.