Mca Nashville
2003
Honkytonkville
About This Album
The release of Honkytonkville should make anyone who harbored insane thoughts about George Strait having his best years behind him certifiable. While it may be his 27th album -- not counting greatest-hits and Christmas records -- Strait sounds hungrier than ever here. Produced by Strait and Tony Brown, the tough barroom ballads and breakneck dance tracks are back with a vengeance, and the material, written by the more imaginative tunesmiths in Nash Vegas, is his strongest in a decade. A quick for-instance is the jukebox-breaking opener, "She Used to Say That to Me," penned by Jim Lauderdale and John Scott Sherrill. Done is a slick 4/4 with a Wynn Stewart-esque melody line and a lyric that's as tender as it is tough, Strait wraps that voice of his around all the pain in it and comes out still standing. The title track, written by Buddy Brock, Dean Dillon (who is well represented here), and Kim Williams, is a fiddle-laden traditionalist anthem to the ghosts of people and places gone yet ever present. "Look Who's Back in Town," with its gorgeous piano lines (reminiscent of a Billy Sherrill production) sounds like a country version of Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side of Town," while everybody had better watch it because "Cowboys Like Us" could signal a return to outlaw country.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 10)

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