CMT Blog: Frank Sinatra

Last week I gushed over a book of fictional stories and “true” recollections by country songwriters called A Guitar and a Pen. I was particularly effusive about the tale of Bill Monroe’s encounter with Frank Sinatra at the White House, which the book — and I, in turn — identified as having been written by CMT.com’s Hazel Smith. Hazel just told me that while the core of the story is true, she didn’t write it. Nor did she accompany Monroe on the trip to Washington, as the story says. These substantial departures from fact call into question all the other pieces presented as real happenings.

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By their friends you shall know them: You know, I think I can count George Strait’s duet partners on the fingers of one hand. There’s Lee Ann Womack, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson, a trio with Jackson and Jimmy Buffett, and a long-distance duet with the late Frank Sinatra. There may be others I’ve missed, but my point is that Strait is very particular about to whom he lends his name and talents. So, I was not overly surprised but was duly impressed to see that Strait duets with Kenny Chesney on the latter’s new CD, Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates.

The song is “Shiftwork,” written by Troy Jones. It’s a good, solid, catchy, working-class salute set to a Caribbean beat. The kind of song at which these two guys excel. Maybe not Grammy time, but a nice song I’ll be happy to listen to more than once. I have to wonder, though, if the title of the song was once missing the letter “f”.