This second LP since George Straits retirement from touring his 30th studio LP is a trip back to when country radio didnt suck as a rule: Eighties pop shine cut with pedal steel/fiddle poetry, Texas swing, cantina blues and achingly-crooned nostalgia that generally doesnt feel hard sell, even when things gets treacly.
Which of course, they do. But The Weight of the Badge is a good-cop tribute that feels legit despite a whiff of Fox News human interest story. And God and Country Music is a matter-of-fact spiritual that might soften hardboiled atheists even if the charming kids voice at the end (it belongs to Straits grandson) feels like cheating. The song was penned by the power trio of Luke Laird, Barry Dean and Lori McKenna, and holds up an image of two patriarchs: Johnny Cash, beloved Christian progressive and tolerant empath, with his arm around Billy Graham, beloved Christian conservative, legacy homophobe and closet anti-Semite. Its an idealized vision of countrys power to unite, and religions. But good on Strait for pitching it. And the Lone Star soul in the chorus the way he shoots into his upper register on theres always lost in the found/Darkness in the I saw the light like a Blue Angels squadron while invoking two country gospel cornerstones is magnificent by any measure.
The highlights elsewhere include top-shelf boilerplate honky-tonkin: see the Hank Williams-invoking Every Little Honky Tonk Bar and the rocknrollin Honky Tonk Time Machine. Theres some Bob Wills Tex-Mex swing (Codigo) and a lonesome Johnny Paycheck cover (Old Violin). The duet Sing One With Willie, a sort of second cousin to Toby Keiths Ill Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again, wraps things up with a smirk. Its a half-baked love song between two old Texas legends who are as different as Cash and Graham, but unified by country music. These days, we all need to find common ground where we can.