It Just Comes Natural - 9123

Amazon.com When the announcement came that George Strait was to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, there were those who thought it was premature. After all, Strait is only in his early 50s, and with 53 #1s, more than anyone else in Nashville history, he is still an active working artist, not the sort who sits back on a million-acre ranch remembering when. But one spin through It Just Comes Natural and it's obvious why the quiet Texan deserved his induction now. He simply has no mainstream peer, for either his consistency on the charts or his continuing to raise the bar with his confident, nuanced performance. Here, on an album recorded in Key West, Strait sounds even more relaxed than usual, as if he took more time to live with the songs--15 in all--before he recorded them. Throughout, he amply demonstrates his ability to choose material that pushes the country genre beyond its core themes of God, family, and patriotism while still staying traditional. So many of the songs catch one off guard, either because of their different subject matter (the way the lyric of "Come on Joe" gradually tells us the dead never really leave the living) or in their sophisticated approach to a routine topic (the head-spinning recognition of an old flame in Bruce Robison's "Wrapped"). Then there's the artistry with which producer Tony Brown's handpicked studio cats elevate an already great song even higher (a sizzling cover of Guy Clark's folk/honky-tonk/Western swing classic "Texas Cookin'"). Twenty-five years after his recording debut, Strait is still as crisp as the crease in his Wranglers. Yet the leader of the Ace in the Hole band has yet another card up his freshly starched sleeve. The man who doesn't talk in concert and rarely speaks to reporters leads off with "Give It Away," a divorce-and-damage saga set off by--surprise--a recitation! --Alanna Nash Product description NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE Review He continues to make such consistent quality look easy. -- USA Today - 10/3/06 - 3 Stars! If ever there was a natural in country music, it's Strait. -- People Magazine - 10/25/06 - 4 STARS Strait only sometimes gets the girl.....but he always gets the hit. -- Entertainment Weekly - B+ From the Artist "I've always just done the music that I felt comfortable doing," says Strait. "I don't really think that everything that I've done has been really hard-core traditional - there's definitely songs that you couldn't classify that way. On this album, I wouldn't call the title cut a traditional country song, but it's a great song." About the Artist George Strait knows those charts well. His 1981 debut single "Unwound" was a Top 10 hit - and he has had at least one single hit the Top 10 every year since (including, as his 2004 box set was titled, 50 Number One Hits). His statistics are nothing short of astonishing, with more than 62 million albums sold in his career. He has 13 multi-Platinum, 30 Platinum and 33 Gold albums - more Gold albums than any other artist in Country Music, which ties him with no less than Frank Sinatra in eighth place for the most Gold albums of any artist in any musical genre. In addition, Strait has received 16 CMA Awards, including multiple wins as Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, and Album of the Year. And perhaps most notable of all is his ongoing role as country music's greatest road warrior, breaking ticket sales records and delighting new audiences one room at a time, year after year. "The great thing about George Strait," rising star Dierks Bentley recently said, "is that he's being doing it since the early `80s, but he still makes every sound check, which is more than a lot of guys below him can say. He brings who he is to each town, which is really a Texas dance hall singer. He can make the biggest arena feel like it's a honky-tonk, trying to take that crazy energy to the biggest venue and making it feel as small as possible. He still enjoys touring after all the
ASIN: B000HCO8JA
VSKU: 4EKGRJ0069WU_ns
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:George Strait
Binding: Audio CD