Disco de George Strait: “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind”

One of George's stronger albums, "Fort Worth" features a fresh and clear-voiced singer who has finally been allowed to follow his heart and make the kind of music he has always wanted to make. The result-his first "album of the year" award from the CMA. This album is lean and mean honky-tonk at its best and you should treat yourself to a copy of it.

I've had the cassette version of this album for 10 years and I finally gave in and bought the CD. In my mind the best album ever made, I can listen to it over and over without getting sick of it unlike most albums. Some say that there are a lot of filler songs on this album, but it is actually the only album I've listened to that doesn't have any - they're all good! This album was so great that When George Strait released a concert DVD in 2002 - 18 years and albums later, out of the 18 songs that he sang, 3 were from this album! I read that for years he opened his concerts with 'The Fireman' and ended them with 'The Cowboy Rides Away' (Which along with Amarillo By Morning' make up my top 3 all-time favorite songs) While all George Strait Albums deserve a 5 star rating, this one deserves six.

IRT

While it's difficult to say where and when George Strait's career really took off, many view DOES FORT WORTH EVER CROSS YOUR MIND as the pivotal album that catapulted Strait straight to the top of the Country Music world. This album garnered numerous awards, acclaim and is a solid continuing favorite among Country Music fans everywhere.

Studded with hits like the title track DOES FORT WORTH EVER CROSS YOUR MIND, YOU'RE DANCIN' THIS DANCE ALL WRONG, COWBOY RIDES AWAY and FIREMAN, this album also offers other tracks that have become hits. But then that's an old story for George Strait--every track seems as fresh and as bright as the title song and there's never any filler to muddy things up.

Douglas McAllister

Country music and I have had somewhat of an on-again, off-again relationship. Back when I was about 9 or 10, I was in love with CMT long before it became "MTV for the heartland". I bought many albums from great country acts of the time like The Judds, Mark Collie (where on Earth has he gone?), Brooks & Dunn, etc. That was also when country music was still very much country and pop music was on its own plane of existence. As today's country music becomes even more indistinguishable from top 40 pop radio, I'm sure I'm like a lot of traditional country fans who are looking back to the older stuff for comfort. Now that I'm back in love with country again, one of the old guard artists I'm growing to love is George Strait. When he first arrived in the early 1980s, country music was undergoing yet another identity crisis with it sounding more like Adult Contemporary pop than real country. However, Strait was more entrenched in Western Swing than anything else, and if you wanted a tried & true country artist, you needn't look any further. But I will admit that as good a musician as Strait is, he's by no means an albums artist. He's pretty much followed the same formula for 20 years, a 10-song album of traditional country music with about 3 or 4 hit singles and selling a million copies. Of course, a lot of times, these album soon become interchangeable, and while some people consider this one DOES FORT WORTH EVER CROSS YOUR MIND (1984) one of George's best, I beg to differ. As you can tell from the title, the album was probably created to back up that hit single, meaning that only a few other songs on here measure up to that great one, while the rest is basically pleasant filler. Indeed, the title track was just one of many #1 country hits for George, proving that while even such old guard personalities like Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers were hooking up with pop music's elite, a small trace of country's tradition still remained. A majority of the songs on the album are of the not-quite-a-ballad variety, & two more songs like that became hits with the Roy Rogers-sounding "The Cowboy Rides Away" and the rocking "The Fireman" both reaching #5. As expected the hits were well chosen, but only a few others are just as good. Another beautiful ballad "You're Dancin' This Dance All Wrong", and the gently swinging "Honky Tonk Saturday Night" & "Love Comes From The Other Side Of Town" are as good as those hits, and should have been released in their own right. The rest of the album seems a bit uninspired in comparison, with a lot of these songs just whisking by in the 2 1/2 minutes they last without leaving much of an impression. Nowadays, country music has begun to exploit the longer length of compact discs with as much as 14 songs on an album, and often better yet letting them establish themselves a little longer than just 2 1/2 minutes. Whether or not those albums sound very country though is a matter of opinion. But back in the age of vinyl where an album can last at least 40 minutes long, country music was still a bit in the past creating albums that barely lasted a half-hour, and not all of it very good sometimes. And even with a staunch traditionalist like George Strait, he could pay to spend at least a little more time with his music than the 29 minutes that DOES FORT WORTH EVER CROSS YOUR MIND lasts. But maybe George is slowly working his way into the modern times with some of his recent albums being given more time to breathe, and sounding less like the Western Swing of his earliest albums but still more country than your average Tim McGraw record.

Are you a fan of hard core, honky tonkin country? Then this is the album for you!!! It was the first time that George co-produced an album and he had complete control over material as well as arrangements. The CMA & ACM agree with me, they both honored this work with Album Of The Year, the first time George received that particular award. It may be over 10 years old now, but still sounds great today. A must for any country lovers collection!!!