George Strait – The Cowboy Rides Away: Live From AT&T Stadium (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:11 minutes | 1,64 GB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MCA Nashville
After three decades of hits, George Strait announced in 2012 he planned to retire after a final tour. Strait didn’t plan to abandon music — he went on record claiming that he still hoped to cut his traditional record a year — but big arena shows were starting to wear on him, so he launched The Cowboy Rides Away tour, allowing all of his fans one final chance to see him in their hometown. The 2014 live album commemorating that farewell tour captures the final show on the tour, a stop in Arlington, Texas on June 7, 2014 where a host of stars stopped by to celebrate Strait’s career. Some of the invited guests are only marginally associated with Strait — Sheryl Crow, in the middle of her country reinvention, feels a tad out of place even if she amiably smiles through “Here for a Good Time” — but there are plenty of old friends (Vince Gill, Alan Jackson), family (Bubba Strait), and new guns carrying the torch (Jason Aldean, Eric Church). The 20-song set list means there are many hits that didn’t make the cut, but never once do they cross your mind as the concert unfolds: this is all relaxed, easy, and effortlessly entertaining, a reminder of all Strait’s great gifts and evidence of why he’ll be missed. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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George Strait – Honky Tonk Time Machine (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:16 minutes | 1005 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MCA Nashville
Simply, the undisputed ‘King of Country Music’ and one of the most influential & popular musicians of all time, with only Elvis & The Beatles achieving higher sales. Name any Award, and chances are he’s won it (several times); name any stat, and chances are he holds the record… really, George Strait is The Man, and what’s more, his new studio album, ‘Honky-Tonk Time Machine’, is classic GS from first (emotive) note to last; superbly crafted songs delivered as only the great man can, including his first ever duet with legend-in-kind, Willie Nelson (‘Sing One With Willie’). If you like your country music delivered straight & true, then this one is a must.
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George Strait – Honkytonkville
Artist: George Strait | Album: Honkytonkville | Style: Country, Folk | Year: 2003 | Quality: DVD-Audio (MLP 5.1 96kHz/24Bit, MLP 2.0 96kHz/24Bit, Dolby AC3 5.1) | Bitrate: lossless | Tracks: 12 | Size: 3.71 Gb | Covers: in archive | Release: MCA Nashville (B0001620-19), 2003 | Note: Watermarked
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. The weepers work too, such as “Tell Me Something Bad About Tulsa,” the Guy Clark-inspired “Desperately” by Bruce Robison and Monte Warden, and the soul-country of “Heaven Is Missing an Angel.” But the barnburner on this one is “I Found Jesus on the Jailhouse Floor.” It may be a gospel song, but it’ll have the honky tonky line dancers pounding the beer before sweating it out on the dancefloor on the Saturday night before Sunday morning. It is completely conceivable to hear this song being done by Merle Haggard’s Strangers in 1967 or by Buck Owens in 1969. “Honk if You Honky Tonk,” another Dillon joint, is harder rocking than anybody but Montgomery Gentry — and they will kick themselves for not recording it first. If the DJs at country radio can hear, they’ll be playing the hell out of this one — it’s got five or six singles if it has one. Not that Strait was ever anything but country; this is the first hard country album of 2003, and he’s got the torch burning bright for the tradition while not giving up an inch of his modernity. (more…)
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