GEORGE STRAIT WISCONSIN STATE FAIR, AUGUST 6
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But Strait has an image problem. Dwight Yoakam’s cowboy duds have just the right touch of ripped-jean cool, but there’s no irony in Strait’s creased Wranglers. In 20 years Strait will be roundly acknowledged as the great country artist he currently is; right now he’s too young to overcome the superficialities of style. The same alternative crowd that now genuflects to Johnny Cash stays away from a George Strait show in droves. It’s possible that there’s never been a big country star whose name outside country drew more blank expressions.
Yet at the Wisconsin State Fair a couple of weekends back the fans who packed the oversold grandstand knew who he was. More important, so did Strait. Behind the outdoor stage–a giant metal construction covered with a tarpaulin–sat three tour buses, road warriors of a thousand fairs, big and small. The two older, smaller buses bore the front sign “George Strait,” but the man who paid the bills didn’t step out of either one.
Strait’s understated weapon is his voice. Like his main man Merle Haggard, Strait has been influenced by country legend Lefty Frizzell and pop crooners Perry Como and Bing Crosby. His Texas accent is apparent but never overdone, and he eschews showy fillips. Although he’s mastered the blue yodel, he rarely cuts loose with such over-the-top vocal flash. And much like the Hag, Strait is inclined toward occasional departures into pop and light jazz. More than anyone, Strait has taken the big band’s western-swing sound, stripped it down with a smaller combo, and kept it alive through the 80s on a mass, mainstream scale.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Basil Fairbanks Studio.
