| George Strait Bio |
| Country music legend George Strait's performance before a record-breaking audience of 68,266 at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last March, including former President Bush and wife Barbara, marked the event's final appearance at the historic Astrodome after 37 years. It also proved to be the perfect occasion for his first-ever live album. |
| After all, who better to celebrate the historic event than this homegrown Texas treasure, a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and the host of the George Strait Team Roping Classic. |
| The Lone Star native, who came from the small southwestern ranch towns of Poteet and Pearsall to become one of the biggest stars in popular music, chose that setting to record For the Last Time: George Strait Live from the Astrodome. It's his 30th album for MCA Nashville-the only label he's ever called home. For the Last Time will be in stores on February 11th and the accompanying DVD, which offers several bonus tracks, comes out on March 4th. |
| Since his 1981 debut, Strait Country, through last year's 20th Century Masters Millennium Collection Best of, Strait has earned 25 platinum albums, including discs that have gone seven-times platinum ('95's Strait out of the Box) and six-times platinum ('92's Pure Country), with four more that have scored triple-platinum. Not to mention his four American Music Awards, 11 Academy of Country Music honors and 15 Country Music Association nods, among his record 70 nominations. |
| Co-produced by Strait and longtime collaborator Tony Brown (working on his 12th Strait album), For the Last Time... features the country music icon's regular touring group, The Ace in the Hole Band. The band includes such veteran Strait cohorts as lead guitarist/fiddle player Benny McArthur, lead guitarist Rick McRae, steel guitar player Mike Daily, bassist Terry Hale, keyboardists Rondal Huckaby and Gene Elders on fiddle and guitar. "George has had the same road band forever," says Brown. "And they are the best there is. He wouldn't be comfortable on stage without them." |
| This new 16-song collection sports a full eight of his record-shattering 50 #1 country hits, including his latest chart topper, "She'll Leave You With A Smile." It's one of three songs on the record from his most recent studio album, 2001's Road Less Traveled, along with the seductive "Run" and "Living and Living Well," his earnest, buoyant tribute to sharing the good life with someone you love. |
| Other selections include early fan favorites like the Terry Stafford/Paul Fraser-penned "Amarillo by Morning," originally on his 1982 sophomore album, Strait From the Heart, and the '85 country chart-topper, Hank Cochran and Dean Dillon's "The Chair" (from the Jimmy Bowen-produced Something Special). There are also hits like Larry Cordle and Larry Shell's "Murder on Music Row," their controversial jibe at the modern country music business-performed as a duet by George and Alan Jackson. "I think I can remember his part," jokes Strait on-stage before performing the song. |
| George also pays tribute to his own musical roots with an opening instrumental vamp on the traditional "Deep in the Heart of Texas," a standard covered by everyone from Gene Autry and Bing Crosby to NRBQ. Strait and the band also tackle a raucous version of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys' '40s western swing classic "Take Me Back to Tulsa," turning the Astrodome into the world's largest barnyard square dance, driven by Daily's steel guitar and Elder's soaring fiddle. |
| "He's constantly pulling out songs that you've never heard of before," marvels co-producer Brown. "The songs he remembers are just amazing. He always loves to do a couple of old tunes on each album." |
| There are also timeless takes on his own #1 country songs like the plaintive "Write This Down" (from '99's Always Never the Same), "I Can Still Make Cheyenne" and "Blue Clear Sky" (from '96's Blue Clear Sky), "Heartland" (from '92's Pure Country), "Love Without End, Amen" (from '90's Livin' It Up) and "Check Yes or No," the Country Music Association/Academy of Country Music's Single of the Year in '95. |
| "The man never fails to amaze me," says Brown. "He has integrity and a very keen sense of who he is musically. Working with him on his first live recording is certainly one of the milestones of my career." |
| Strait's aptly named Ace in the Hole Band immediately makes the massive gathering seem like an intimate western-style hoe-down, with 60,000-plus longhorn good ole boys and girls embracing their own, making the night at once a celebration of the past and a hopeful step into the future. |
| The album includes excerpts from former President Bush's tribute to Strait and George's own reminiscence of his first performance at the Rodeo almost 20 years ago, filling in for the "late great Eddie Rabbit.": "It really does seem like only yesterday. They called me and I'd just got in from a tour. They said, 'Can you be at the Houston Astrodome to play at the rodeo in about two hours?' and I said, 'Hmm...this has got to be a joke.' I managed to get a hold of everybody and they put us on an airplane and flew us up here. What a night that was and it’s been great ever since." |
| Just don't be fooled when Strait croons, on the longing finale, "The Cowboy Rides Away," his hit from the 1984 CMA/ACM Album of the Year, Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind, "It's time to say goodbye to yesterday/this is where the cowboy rides away." |
| Strait was named the #1 Touring Country Act of the '90s by Amusement Business magazine. His reputation for excellence extended into the George Strait Country Music Festival, which from 1998 to 2001, attracted more than 3 million fans, grossed over $120 million dollars and boasted many of country's biggest selling artists on the bill. His current live shows, staged in the round, have been setting venue records since the tour began in September of 2002. |
| The man's not about to hang up his patented Resistol hat, Wrangler jeans and Justin boots. In fact, he's already looking forward to returning to Rodeo Houston on February 25, 2003, when he'll participate in the opening ceremonies in its brand-new home at newly built Reliant Stadium. |
| For Strait, it's just the start of another tradition, which is something, after more than two decades in the music business, he knows a great deal about. |
