Artist: George Strait
Album: Twang
Grade: B+
Label: MCA Nashville
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On his 26th studio album, country music king George Strait could have delivered another one of his classy, authentic and predictable batch of songs. Nobody would have complained, because Strait on auto-pilot is better than just about any freshly scrubbed pop singer posing as a country crooner.
But Twang ably presents a veteran artist willing to shake himself out of complacency. For starters, the disc includes three tunes Strait co-wrote, his first songwriting credits since 1982. All three are penned with his son, George "Bubba" Strait Jr. They include the elegant single, "Living for the Night," and the two-stepper, "He's Got That Something Special." "Arkansas Dave," a galloping story song crafted by Strait Jr., sounds like something Johnny Cash would have written, with its tale of murder and thievery.
Nothing, however, prepares you for Strait's take on "El Rey," the legendary ranchera penned by José Alfredo Jiménez and popularized by Vicente Fernández. Not only does the Texan roll his Rs, but he manages to inject the unbridled potency necessary to convincingly sing a ranchera – in Spanish, to boot.
Elsewhere, Twang goes from roadhouse rave-ups (Delbert McClinton's "Same Kind of Crazy") to stately country ballads ("Beautiful Day for Goodbye"). After nearly three decades of influential country music, Strait has nothing to prove. How cool that Twang sounds as if he does.
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