31st studio album, the feel-good marks five decades of record releases; a titanic career for a Texas troubadour whose greatest ambition seems to have always been the same: Make pretty, plain-spoken songs about life's true pains and pleasures, and listeners will find their own resonance within them.
Across 13 songs in 47 minutes 鈥� his first collection since 2019's 鈥淗onky Tonk Time Machine鈥� 鈥� Strait plays to his traditionalist country style without ever sounding derivative of his former records. That's the beauty of his particular songwriting: The songs on 鈥淐owboys and Dreamers鈥� could exist at any point in time across his career, not in a lazy atavistic fashion, but utilizing nostalgia as an effective art medium.
There are standouts for every mood across 鈥淐owboys and Dreamers,鈥� best heard through an old truck's speakers while driving down an empty back road: The joyful single 鈥淗onky Tonk Hall of Fame,鈥� featuring Chris Stapleton, a cover of 鈥淲aymore鈥檚 Blues,鈥� and the vacation stomper, 鈥淢IA Down in MIA.鈥�
Privacy is required for the tear-jerking ballads with pedal steel that sounds like crying: Like on 鈥淭he Little Things,鈥� 鈥淧eople Get Hurt Sometimes,鈥� 鈥淭he Journey Of Your Life鈥� or, most severely, 鈥淩ent,鈥� written by Guy Clark and Keith Gattis, that begins with Strait offering a spoken-word tribute to the late Gattis.
鈥淭he war took my brother/The good Lord took my mother/And the years, well, I don鈥檛 know where they all went,鈥� he later sings in its striking chorus. "Until that roll is called up yonder/All I can do is wonder/If I even did enough to make a dent/But I made a few good friends/And I always paid my rent.鈥�
Over the last two years, Strait has been on tour with Stapleton and Little Big Town. He's maybe not stereotypically associated with country music, but deep appreciators of the stuff, nonetheless. In June, at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium not far from New York City, Strait turned a space of tens of thousands across many demographics into something resembling the intimacy of those honky tonks he's always singing about. Strait performed with a big band and a lot of heart, in a Western shirt and stiff, straight-starched jeans. (The closest a person can get to levitation is singing along to 鈥淎marillo by Morning鈥� in a stadium of tens of thousands, anyway.) There, as on 鈥淐owboys and Dreamers,鈥� Strait's powers were in full force: Familiar sounds in a modern context. If you love Strait, you love him 鈥� and that makes it classic.
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Maria Sherman, The Associated Press
