George Goes Strait To Top With Understated Style
Anybody assuming that the recent release of George Strait’s four-CD boxed set, “Strait Out of the Box,” is the handsome Texas cowboy’s career swan song isn’t in possession of the facts.
Despite being the most private and underpublicized of country music’s major stars, Strait remains one of a handful of big stars on the scene. How big? Well …
When he performs two shows at the Houston Rodeo next February, attendance at the first show is expected to pass a monstrous benchmark: He will become the only entertainer in history ever to have drawn more than 1 million persons to the Houston Rodeo, according to his manager, Erv Woolsey.
His current single, “Check Yes or No,” has occupied the No. 1 spot on the country hit charts for three consecutive weeks and is probably the biggest of his career, Woolsey adds.
His more than 30 million career record sales probably rank him behind Garth Brooks’ 60 million as the second best of country’s current record sellers, MCA-Nashville chairman Bruce Hinton estimates. Hinton adds that he expects the “Strait Out of the Box” set, which already has shipped around 400,000, to sell more than 500,000 copies of the quadruple-volume package by the end of the year, translating into certification as double platinum (i.e., sales of 2 million individual CDs).
Since his first single, “Unwound,” entered the charts 15 years ago, he has not had a single week in which he did not have an album or a single on the country hit charts, Woolsey says.
Over the course of his career he has recorded 20 albums, and they have remained so popular that every one continues to be marketed by MCA.
Despite the fact that he has cut his annual touring down to some 70 shows or less, he performs to a total of more than 1 million fans a year via live performances alone.
All this despite a low interview profile that Strait has kept since the death of his 13-year-old daughter nearly a decade ago.
“I wouldn’t recommend the low-profile approach to any other artist because I think it might be seen on anybody else as some kind of attitude or something,” remarks MCA chairman Hinton, “but the fans obviously recognize that George is just a genuinely nice person with a shy side.”
Manager Woolsey says he expects that Strait “at some point” will make another movie to capitalize on the success of “Pure Country,” his unexpectedly convincing film of three years ago.
Woolsey says the singer has been smart enough to sift through all his opportunities and “pick the things that work for him” while choosing not to participate in many others. He adds that Strait is “a good businessman” who always has his albums finished on time to make certain there’s no snag in the machinery getting them to consumers at the optimum intervals.
McGraw buys Civil War hospital
Quadruple platinum selling Tim McGraw has bought a Franklin, Tenn., house that was used as a hospital during the Civil War’s Battle of Franklin.
McGraw rarely sees his new residential showplace because he reputedly prefers being on the road to coming home. His Thanksgiving plans didn’t even call for him to be there. He instead was expected to have his turkey feast with his mother in Florida.
Brooks & Dunn set tour
Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who are just finishing up another album of boot-scoot music tentatively scheduled for release in the spring, are gearing up their high-profile tour by aiming for both traditional fans and those a little left of center.
Next year’s Brooks & Dunn tour lineup is slated to feature neo-traditional hat act Tracy Byrd in the middle slot with honkytonk rocker David Lee Murphy opening. Byrd occupied the same position in ‘95 with Reba McEntire’s big-drawing troupe, and Murphy is beginning to make very noticeable waves after starting slow.
Murphy getting hot
Speaking of David Lee Murphy, after his slow start he has just seen his first and so far only album, MCA’s “Out With a Bang,” certified gold (signifying sales of more than 500,000) on the growing strength of such hits as “Party Crowd” and “Dust on the Bottle.”
“It’s never come easy for me,” says the native of rural Herrin, Ill. “Nothing’s ever dropped in my lap - I’ve had to make it happen. I’ve had to claw my way to get every inch of everything I’ve ever gotten.”
Parnell scared during show
Singer-songwriter-slide guitarist Lee Roy Parnell, who now lives in Nashville but whose musical and spiritual home is the capital city of Texas, says he never recalls being as “scared” as he was when he journeyed back recently to videotape his first appearance on the PBS’, “Austin City Limits.”
He says he guesses it was because all his family and old friends were there. He adds, however, that he “somehow” snapped out of it after the second song.