Country Music Legend: George Strait

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The 1980s
The 1990s
The 2000s until Present Days
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Country music is one of the significant parts of the American culture. Considered as the music for farmers and rednecks, country music is very popular in the USA as it is a simple and understandable to any American combination of beautiful music and nice lyrics. It has always been popular disregarding the situation in the country, political, or social issues, wars, and the economy declines.

The musical history of the 20th century is full of outstanding country music performers. However, George Strait is known today as the phenomenon in this sphere. He is considered one of the most successful country music performers in the history of the USA. Strait is 63, and he is still active. The hard work and strong will have made George Strait such a productive and popular country performer in the USA.

The 1980s

The professional career of George Strait as the country music performer started in 1981 with his first song that became one the hits of that time, “Unwound” (Erlewine par. 3; Welky & Keckhaver 29). Before that, Strait and his country band called Ace in the Hole had played Rock’n’Roll music for several years already (Waddell par. 8). There were several records made for the label D, based in Dallas few years before his first hit, but they were not successful. Strait attempted to become a country singer in Nashville, but it did not go well.

Only in 1979, when he met Erv Woolsey, the former worker of MCA Records and the owner of the bar where they had met, Strait received the chance to become the professional country music singer. During the next years after his start, he managed to record several other hits that reached the top ranks of the national country music charts. In total, Strait released about 30 singles that became great hits (Erlewine par. 4).

The 1980s can be characterized as the time of Strait’s domination in the country music area. His diligence was worthy of even more admiration when in 1986, his 13-years-old daughter was killed in the car accident and for a while, Strait avoided the media and tried to stay away from the scene (Dukes par. 1). The audience was thrilled by the work of George Strait, and his albums many times were recognized as platinum and gold back then.

The 1990s

In 1992, Strait had a leading role in the movie Pure Country. In 1996, the set of four disks that included the retrospective of his career and called “Strait Out of the Box,” became “one of the five biggest-selling box sets in popular music history” (Erlewine par. 4). The albums that reached the top lines of the national charts had been released one after another: “Carrying Your Love with Me” in 1997, “One Step at a Time” in 1998, “Always Never the Same” in 1999, and “George Strait” in 2000 (Erlewine par. 4; The Famous People par. 13).

His hard work and unique talent were the reasons of such a tremendous and continuous success in the 1990s. During the decade, Strait managed to produce the greatest number of his singles that became the hits of all times. It should be noted that it was the time when such a new phenomenal star as Garth Brooks came to the scene (Erlewine par. 5). George Strait managed to keep his tempo, and he did not lose the audience of his admirers in such competitive environment.

The 2000s until Present Days

George Strait decided to start the 2000s from the experiments in his work. The album called “The Road Less Travelled” included as traditionally performed songs as well as “a foray into vocal processing” (Erlewine par. 5; Blume 103).

Despite the experimentations, this part of Strait’s work was welcomed, and it showed that he was still in search for something new, even after the decades of work and millions of records he had already sold. The successful career continued by the numerous top-charts hitters nearly every year. In 2012, George Strait announced the end of his touring career and initiated the preparations to his last tour. It was called “The Cowboy Rides Away Tour” that started in 2013 and continued until 2014. In 2015, Strait decided to reside at the Las Vegas Arena and announced new album release called “Cold Beer Conversation” (Erlewine par. 7). Today, George Strait is still the country music star of the national scale.

Conclusion

Summing, one can say that such essential contributors to success as the hard work and strong will helped George Strait in becoming such a productive and popular country performer in the USA. Despite the considerably late start of the career, the death of his 13-years-old daughter in the car accident, and the apparent distance from the media, George Strait is among the most significant and successful figures in the country music history as of today. He went through the decades of changes in the music industry, the birth of the new stars, young and hungry for success, but remained the hardworking and very talented country music performer.

Works Cited

Blume, Jason. Six Steps to Songwriting Success, Revised Edition: The Comprehensive Guide to Writing and Marketing Hit Songs. New York: Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony, 2010. Print.

Dukes, Billy. “10 Things You didn’t Know about George Strait.” Taste of Country. 2016. Web.

Erlewine, Stephen. “About George Strait.” CMT. 2016. Web.

The Famous People. George Strait Biography. 2016. Web.

Waddell, Ray. “George Strait: The Billboard Cover Story Q&A.” Billboard. 2013. Web.

Welky, Ali and Mike Keckhaver. Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2013. Print.

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