"Honkytonkville" review - GS/June 10th

Date: 28 May 2003 19:42:31 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western
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Reviews
All Music Guide
For anyone who harbored insane thoughts about George Strait having his best
years behind him, the release of Honkytonkville makes you certifiable. While it
may be his 27th album-not counting greatest hits and Christmas records-Strait
sounds hungrier than ever here. Produced by he 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 opener "She Used To Say That
To Me," penned by Jim Lauderdale and James Scott Sherrill, is a jukebox
breaker. 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 Whose Back In Town," with it's gorgeous piano lines
(reminiscent of a Billy Sherrill production) sounds like a country version of
Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side of Town," while we all 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 Robsion and Monte Warden and the soul country of
"Heaven Is Missing An Angel.." But the bar burner 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 fools 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. Thom Jurek