George Strait's 2008 CD, Troubadour, photo courtesy of MCA Nashville.

Remarkable. It's the best word to describe the continuing development of George Strait, who's written a personal history so unique he's creating new, record-breaking plateaus that have simply never been reached before.

He already owns the all-time record for the most No. 1 singles in any genre. He has more career nominations than any other artist in both the Nashville-based Country Music Association awards and the California-bred Academy of Country Music honors. He has more gold and platinum albums than any other country artist.

His last album, It Just Comes Natural, was so solid that it brought him the CMA honor for Album of the Year, an award he's won four different times and in three different decades.

And the "King of Country Music" joined the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006, making him the only performer who's earned a plaque in the hallowed halls while still consistently racking up hits. With Troubadour, George's 35th album, he continues to raise the standard. From a numerical view, the album's first single, "I Saw God Today," already set a personal mark when it debuted at No. 19 on the country radio charts—higher than any other song he's released in his career.

From a creative vantage point, the album as a whole is, again, remarkable. George explores new musical turf with the calypso R&B in "River Of Love"; opens up to meaningful—and rare—guest appearances by Patty Loveless, Vince Gill and songwriter pal Dean Dillon; and delivers the 12-song set with a voice that continues an extremely graceful evolution.

"He's always good," co-producer Tony Brown says, "but he sang really good on this album."

George Strait photo courtesy of MCA Nashville.

"His vocal tone has progressed very, very nicely in the last five or six years," observes Dillon, who should know: One of Strait's golfing and fishing compadres, he's written 13 of Strait's hits, dating back to the first, 1981's "Unwound."

"He's got a real mellow thing goin' with his voice right now."

Troubadour benefits from George's uncanny ability to balance organization and spontaneity. He and Brown, who has overseen Strait projects since the Pure Country soundtrack in 1992, spend much of the year amassing potential songs, and as one of the genre's pre-eminent artists, George has the opportunity to select from the very best.
Still, the albums aren't mapped out precisely. He and Brown literally determine which titles they intend to work on the morning of a given session, following the day's creative muse.

That was even easier on Troubadour as George recorded, for the second time, at Jimmy Buffett's Shrimpboat Sound in Key West. A beat-up shack on the waterfront that used to be a shrimp storage cooler where boats would deposit the day's catch, the studio is so small that they pulled a Ryder truck up to the back door to provide an isolation booth for the electric guitarist's amplifier.

George first recorded there when he sang on Buffett's award-nominated event "Hey, Good Lookin'," and he fell in love with the place. Removed from the day-to-day concerns in Nashville—the home for most of the session players, who Strait affectionately refers to as "the Critters"—there's a free quality about the studio and its setting that appeals to the singer.

"We were all havin' fun, which I think shows in the tracks," Brown says of the sessions. "In the beginning, we went to Shrimpboat on a whim. This time we went back because the last album turned out so awesome. I have a funny feelin' we'll be goin' back again."
As always, Troubadour is a mix of the playful and the profound. The breezy energies get tapped in the restless, workin'-man tribute "Brothers Of The Highway"; the romantic vacation piece "When You're In Love"; the slightly funky "River Of Love"; and the snappy honky-tonker "Make Her Fall In Love With Me Song."