At a time when many country music artists have roughly the shelf life of a loaf of bread, George Strait is a wonder of longevity. Twenty years into his major label career, this cowboy-hatted Texan has never been off the charts. He has moved millions of CDs. He fills arenas.
And his popularity shows no signs of slowing. This week, his latest CD on MCA Nashville, “The Best of George Strait: 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection,” hits stores. A compilation that contains 12 of his No. 1 hits from 1983 to 1993, it features such sparkling cuts as the hard-swinging “Ace in the Hole,” heartbreaking romantic ballads (“Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye”) and such cheeky numbers as “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.”
Outside of country music, Strait doesn’t have the one-name pop crossover recognition of a Garth or a Reba or a Shania or a Faith. But within country, make no mistake: Commercially and critically, he’s a bona fide superstar.
A dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist, Strait’s roots run deep. Since he first arrived on the charts in 1981 with the hard-core country hit “Unwound,” Strait has long blended top-notch western swing, a la one of his heroes, Bob Wills, with an understated vocal style that harks back to such country icons as Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard. But he’s no mere revival act. Like Alan Jackson, Strait is a contemporary artist who manages to balance the roots of the genre with a modern sensibility.
What’s the key to his longevity? For starters, Strait has rarely deviated from his traditionalist path, and he has steadfastly resisted changing his music to fit the fashions of the moment. Twenty-eight albums into his career, he boasts a fan loyalty that’s kept him at the top long after many of his peers have fallen by the commercial wayside.
“He’s used a timeless sound, which is the twin fiddles, steel guitar, the whole thing across the board,” says country historian and critic Rich Kienzle. “That sound seems to endure no matter what the trend of the day happens to be. By sticking to his guns, by sticking to the music he did best, he’s established an identity for himself that’s been pretty hard for anybody else to shake.”
“I think the biggest key is that he’s been consistent,” says Tom “Cadillac Jack” Kapsalis, a deejay and music director at WXTU, the top-rated country station in Philadelphia. “He’s always been a traditional country artist, and he’s never changed. George Strait is going to be around as long as George Strait wants to be around.”
Tony Brown, one of the most progressive producers and industry figures in Nashville, has worked with Strait in the studio for over a decade. He cites Strait’s ability to remain loyal to his roots without falling into the trap of merely emulating the past. “[His music] is neither retro, which is trying to be kind of hip, nor old-timey, which is just not up with the times,” Brown says. “George is that hybrid kind of traditional artist who marries it all together without contriving anything.”
And what about the low-key magnetism of the man himself, which leaves his fans in a lather? For a country superstar, Strait is as reclusive as it gets.
He’s long maintained a deeply private personal life centered around his family, ranch life and rodeo. Unlike Garth Brooks, who gives more weekly press briefings than Donald Rumsfeld, Strait is so loath to do interviews that an actual sit-down with the man is treated by country journalists as a rarity on a par with harpooning Moby Dick.
Strait shows no signs of changing his personal style any time soon. He’s never succumbed to the contemporary trappings of your average big country concert. He doesn’t swing in on a rope, he uses no strobe lights, he doesn’t employ a bevy of dancers. No muscle shirts or leather rock-star britches for this guy. He still wears his trademark Resistol hat, western shirt, pressed jeans and boots.
In concert, Strait simply saunters into an arena, acoustic guitar slung casually around his shoulder, nods to his crack backup outfit the Ace in the Hole Band, and starts to croon into a microphone. He brings down the house every time.
“George will stand there on the stage with his guitar and he’ll sing for you,” says Anita O’Brian, president of his official fan club ( www.georgestrait.com). “Many times the fan club members say there’s a mystery there. They just can’t wait till George speaks into the microphone just to hear his voice. They just come back for more and more because of the mystery. People say, `Well, what mystery is there?’ Well, the mystery is he just gives you a little, and you come back for more and more. And here he is, 20 years later.”
It’s that understated quality that seems to keep his many fans in rapture, a quality that some see as reminiscent of certain country legends from earlier generations.
“Charisma is a very funny thing,” says Brown. “Some people can actually develop charisma for a fleeting [period]. Maybe for a couple years they’ll have it because they get so huge, and then they’re just gone. George, like Johnny Cash, like Willie Nelson — all three of those have a different kind [of charisma]. Johnny is the Man in Black, Willie is the hippie, and then there’s George, the cowboy. They really are able to walk it.”
