Ahhh, more great late-'90s George...

...at Prime Country, Sirius Ch. 61: "I caught you lookin' at me when I looked at you, yes I did, ain't that true...you won't get embarrassed by the things I do, I just want to dance with you..."
The lead-off single from Strait's 1998 album One Step At A Time, "I Just Want To Dance With You" spent three weeks at No. 1 in the summer of 1998. Songs like this were about as close to bubble-gum as George ever got. I've heard some people claim people like me have a double standard for not minding songs like this, but I don't so much mind them if they sound halfway country, and this song had a great fiddle-and-steel arrangement that didn't sound like it was tacked on, as many songs from the more contemporary acts do.

The reviews of One Step At A Time in general weren't quite as positive as the ones for the two sets that preceded it, Blue Clear Sky and Carrying Your Love With Me, but in spite of that I for one thought the cd was arguably the best of those three, It had some of the best single songs of George's career, among them the title track, "Remember the Alamo" and "Maria."

I always thought it was pretty nifty that the album had a song with the title "Remember the Alamo," considering it was released on April 21 -- San Jacinto Day here in Texas, the day that the Texians won their independence from Mexico, with the Texian soldiers' battle cry being "Remember the Alamo!" The gut-string-soaked ballad "Maria," was, in a way, my introduction to the Texas music scene, as it was penned and originally recorded by Robert Earl Keen; I bought the Keen cd with the original version of that song (West Textures) a few months later, and really liked it. I really should pull those cds out and put 'em on the iPod...