Flashback: See George Strait’s Good-Natured Live ‘Ocean Front Property’
By 1987, seven years into his MCA recording contract,
Having already racked up nine Number One singles since 1982’s “Fool Hearted Memory” – including ballads such as “You Look So Good in Love” and “Let’s Fall to Pieces Together” alongside traditional-leaning swingers like “Right or Wrong” – Strait kicked off 1987 by selling out a two-night stint at the Houston Astrodome in less than 24 hours.
An undeniable factor in Strait’s early (and ongoing) track record was songwriter Dean Dillon, who, with legendary songwriter Hank Cochran had already penned Strait’s unforgettable 1985 classic “The Chair.” But where that tune was sweetly sentimental, the title cut they wrote for Ocean Front Property – with Royce Porter, Dillon’s collaborator on Strait’s previous chart-topper “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You” – took an ironic look at a break-up in lyrics that insisted a former lover wouldn’t be missed. That turns out, however, to be the bigger lie in a series of falsehoods, chief among them the geographical impossibility of ocean-front property in the landlocked state of
Although Ocean Front Property would ultimately boast three Number One hits, including “Am I Blue” and one of Strait’s most enduring hits, “All My Ex’s Live in
In a 1990 live concert from
In March, Strait is slated to be honored as Texan of the Year by the Texas Legislative Conference.