George Strait “Troubadour”
April 5, 2008 – 7:53 amLike a bottle of Heinz ketchup on a diner counter, a George Strait album is a reassuring product. At fifty-five, dude’s spent his life making fairly low-bullshit, high-yield mainstream country: Since 1981’s Strait Country, his LPs have gone platinum or better thirty-two times, and the four-CD anthology Strait Out of the Box has shifted 8 million units. That’s a lot of Resistol cowboy hats, pardner (although thanks to his endorsement deal, Strait no doubt gets ‘em free). Troubadour is up to the usual standards, maybe better. There’s witty, swaggering honky-tonk (”Make Her Fall in Love With Me Song”) and the requisite hot-fiddle swing number (”West Texas Town”). “House of Cash” is a rock-edged duet with Patty Loveless about the blaze that leveled Johnny Cash’s family home last year. Moving tribute or pop vampirism? Depends on your taste for sentimentality. Ditto the hit single “I Saw God Today,” which is so disarmingly plain-spoken and deftly universal, only the most hard-boiled atheist could be offended. It’s one example of why folks call Strait “King George” — although this monarch is a uniter, not a divider.
