Wow!
I grew up singing this song, one of those traditional folk Spanish songs that everyone knows when the family gets together, a sing along. "El Rey" was written by Jose Alfredo Jimenez a legend, staple and integral part of the Mexican musical heritage who composed over 1,000 songs.
As stated by William Gradante in The Latin American Music Review -
"El Rey" (which means “The King”) was written over 50 years ago by Jose Alfredo Jimenez, who is one of Mexico’s most esteemed songwriters. Jimenez is sometimes referred to as the Mexican Woody Guthrie, and has been described as “Mexico’s Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Hank Williams all rolled into one.”
And that's true, Jose Alfredo Jimenez was amazing and many artist to this day still cut his songs from countries like Mexico, Spain, Argentina.... but who would've ever thought George Strait would take such a chance with a Spanish song. A language we all thought he wasn't very well versed in. We were wrong.
As a girl who to this day, will still get up and sing this song with a mariachi when they start playing it, George Strait simply NAILS IT! Amazing, impressive.... almost better than most Ranchera Style artist I've heard. This version is as great as the interpretation of Jose Alfredo Jimenez himself, I'm sure he'd be so proud that our king would be singing his "King".
Thank you, George. Thank you for paying tribute, keeping it so close to the traditional version and making us proud to call you our KING!
This track is part of his new album "Twang" set to drop August 11th.