...here, but I do have to take issue with one thing:
Despite his Lone Star pedigree and pride, Strait also is not, thank goodness, a good ol' boy. His music doesn't — like so much of today's country — pander to lowest common denominators or go for cheesy sentimentality. He's not squawking about blessing broken roads or sexy tractors or how tequila makes her clothes fall off.I can see where Mr. Guerra's coming from here, but the thing about it is, a Texas good ole boy is EXACTLY what George Strait is. He just doesn't play it up in his music or media appearances. One could argue that the acts who go for the cheesy sentimentality and lowest common denominators are anything but the good ole boys or girls they try to pass themselves off as -- or, from a different angle, that they basically eschew one manufactured image for that one, as C.M. Wilcox from Country California posited a good while back. (I must admit I do like most of what I've heard from Rodney Atkins' If You're Going Through Hell cd, although "It's America" is rather trite.) But Strait really is just a soft-spoken Texas cowboy -- it's not just an image, and that positive perception is only bolstered by his reclusiveness and low profile, I think. I don't know how much different that is now from the early-to-mid-'80s when he was establishing himself, but considering the fact that he's still around now, still selling albums and selling out stadium shows like the one in Houston tonight, I'd guess it wasn't that much different.
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