While watching The CBS George Strait special, I saw Jamie Foxx give a Tribute to George Strait by singing his song “you look so good in love”. Before Jamie Sang the song he mentioned an experience when he was younger about trying to go see George in the town next over to his hometown. He talked about when he found out that George was coming to his town to preform, that he was going to see him no matter what even if he had to go over the tracks to see him. As Jamie said, unfortunately he wasn’t able to see him but no one believed him that George strait had performed there until he met George Strait and he verified his story.
I enjoyed watching the tribute for one because I love that song but also it shows how much George Strait has influenced country music artist but also other Genre Artists like Jamie Foxx who is an R&B artist. It amazes me how a country artist could influence an artist who isn’t even in the same Genre. This truly shows how country music has shaped music today and how George will be known as one of the greats for all time.
While Jamie was singing the tribute, I saw some similarities and some differences in how he sung it and how George sings it. In Jamie’s version, it has more of a gospel and R&B sound to his voice; whereas with George, it has a deeper tone and a more rustic feel to his voice. The most profound similarity is the way the music flows with lyrics showing that side of Nashville sound and being elegant and smooth in both of their versions of the song.
Although Jamie wasn’t the only person who sung a song in tribute to George i think that his was the most profound due to the fact that exemplifies that country music can cross all boundaries even other genres. As I finished watching the rest of special I started to look back to my past to remember things about George Strait and how much his music has affected me and I am not even a country singer so I knew that some of the people like Jamie, Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson, Blake Shelton , Miranda Lambert, and Taylor swift who are singers, how much he has affected their lives in a tremendous way by either influencing their music or allowing them to be the opening act in his concert for their first concert. George Strait has and will always be an iconic figure in the music business no matter what genre it is and this tribute below shows how this is true.
Being from a suburb of Atlanta country music is popular but Honky Tonk is not a thing. Two stepping is something that is well known from the rap song “2 Step” by DJ UNK. So this last weekend I ventured up to Dallas/Fort Worth and got to experience the world’s largest Honky Tonk, Billy Bob’s Texas. It was nothing like I could have ever imagined. The place was huge and full of people. When we first got there we went right into the bull-riding arena. The arena was just buzzing with excitement. Only two of the riders made it to the full eight seconds, however it was so thrilling to watch. The atmosphere that the arena brought was crazy. When the bull-riding was finished we moved to the dance floor to people watch. And let me just say Billy Bob’s attracts all different types of people. From old people to young people, all different types of ethnic groups, couples to just groups of friends, it was a very good people-watching scene. Some couples were such good dancers my friends and me were in awe of them, while others were just awkward and uncomfortable to watch. The good ones would work the whole floor doing dips and spins. Although at one point things got really weird, when a hired dance company called The House of Horrors, came on stage to perform a zombie version of a “Fifty Shade of Grey” dance. They were clearly promoting the release of the new movie this weekend but the dance was awful, uncomfortable to watch, and felt very out of place.
We did not stay for her whole performance because we also wanted to walk around the stockyards. It was so different from what I had expected, because we had been in downtown Fort Worth for dinner so when we arrived in the stockyards it was nothing I could have imagined. I felt like I had stepped into a small old country town and was not still in one of the biggest cities in Texas. Obviously, it was late at night at this point so we window shopped at the closed stores and peeked into the other bars to get a feel for what they were like. They all seemed very similar with people dressed to the nines in their boots, belt buckles, and cowboy hats. It was so interesting because even though everyone was dressed similarly there still were a wide variety of people everywhere. We left the stockyards and went to explore West 7th Street in downtown which is suppose to be the college area, and it was a drastic change as to where we had just been.
