ARTIST STATEMENT:
 
They call him “The king of country.”  No one really disputes that.
 
Born and raised in Texas (where obviously all his exes live too), George Strait literally pioneered neotraditional country music style in the 80’s.
 
He actually started out in a high school garage rock band influenced by British Invasion music.  When he enlisted in the army, he joined a country band. In college, he cattle-ranched by day and honky-tonked by night as he began his rise to the top of all of the charts all of the time.
 
In the 90’s he released one of those very cool 4-disk box sets and called it “Strait out of the Box”. That box had 2 new singles in it including the hit “Check Yes or No,” thus the title of my piece. His hits still  keep coming. Last year he broke a record for most fans at a US concert. Today at 73, he’s a hall-of-famer with shelves full of Grammys.
 
I got to see him on what he called his farewell tour which was indeed an epic Texas country celebration.  My version of him as my latest honey-nut hero is made straight out the box(es)of cereal. In this construction, George is 36 and on the cover of his “If You Ain’t Lovin’ You Ain’t Livin’” cassette tape.  He says “You know traditional country music is something that’s going to be around forever.” I say he just might be around forever too.