Mca Special Products
1981
Strait Country
About This Album
Given George Strait's stature and his enduring popularity, it's easy to forget just how startling his debut Strait Country was in 1981. At the time, country music was given over to lush country-pop crossovers, aging outlaws, urban cowboy swagger and the emergence of Alabama-styled country-rock, all sounds that evoked the dawn of the Reagan era (and still do to this day), but Strait flew in the face of all of these trends, drawing deep on honky tonk tradition, undeniably rooted in Texas but willing to wander outside of the Lone Star State's borders. This restlessness manifested itself most notably on Strait's clear love of Merle Haggard, evident on the warm, breezy "Blame It on Mexico" whose verses could have been lifted from Hag's early-'70s efforts, but this wasn't a tune that was stuck in the past: this, along with the Top Ten hit "If You're Wanting a Stranger (There's One Coming Home)," was given enough of a light production sheen so it could fit alongside urban cowboy, but Strait's delivery and attitude made these slight forays into poppier material sound as pure country as the harder stuff here. And that's the genius of Strait Country -- it showed how it was possible to be planted firmly in traditional country yet flexible enough to play softer stuff without losing that hardcore stance.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4,6 and 7)

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