{"id":8987,"date":"2025-03-11T15:12:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T15:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/?p=8987"},"modified":"2025-03-11T15:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T15:12:44","slug":"american-idol-alabama-teen-earns-golden-ticket-with-rowdy-george-strait-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/american-idol-alabama-teen-earns-golden-ticket-with-rowdy-george-strait-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"AMERICAN IDOL: Alabama Teen Earns Golden Ticket With Rowdy George Strait Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>17-year-old Crews Wright stood in front of the judges to showcase his voice and his showmanship with a cover of George Strait\u2019s \u201cThe Fireman.\u201d The Samson, Alabama, native told\u00a0<a rel='\"noreferrer' noopener href="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/www.al.com%5C/life%5C/2025%5C/03%5C/alabama-singer-to-be-featured-in-american-idol-premiere-im-a-diehard-traditional-country-guy.html%5C%22" target='\"_blank\"'>local media, \u201cI grew up in music my whole life. I remember singing, you know, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. My mom, she sang a little bit, and I grew up in church, and I sung hymns and sung in church a lot \u2026 That\u2019s really kind of what kicked off my music.\u201d\n\n\n\n<h1 class='\"wp-block-heading\"'>AMERICAN IDOL: Alabama Teen Earns Golden Ticket With Rowdy George Strait Cover\n\n\n\n</h1><p>Published Mar 9, 2025 By&nbsp;<a href="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/classiccountrymusic.com%5C/author%5C/tiffany%5C/%5C%22">Tiffany Aaron<img decoding='\"async\"' src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/classiccountrymusic.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2025%5C/03%5C/Crews-Wright-covers-George-Strait-735x413.png%5C%22" alt='\"AMERICAN' idol: alabama teen earns golden ticket with rowdy george strait cover classic country music legendary stories and songs videos>\n\n\n\n<p>Crews Wright covered George Strait&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Fireman&rdquo; for his &ldquo;American Idol&rdquo; audition (Photo credit: American Idol\/TikTok and Rick Diamond\/Getty Images)\n\n\n\n</p><h2 class='\"wp-block-heading\"'><em>American Idol&nbsp;is back with the season 23 premiere airing Sunday night (March 9). The two-hour show brought loads of talent, including an impressive George Strait cover that was pure country.\n\n\n\n<p>17-year-old Crews Wright stood in front of the judges to showcase his voice and his showmanship with a cover of George Strait\u2019s \u201cThe Fireman.\u201d The Samson, Alabama, native told&nbsp;<a href="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/www.al.com%5C/life%5C/2025%5C/03%5C/alabama-singer-to-be-featured-in-american-idol-premiere-im-a-diehard-traditional-country-guy.html%5C%22" target='\"_blank\"' rel='\"noreferrer' noopener>local media, \u201cI grew up in music my whole life. I remember singing, you know, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. My mom, she sang a little bit, and I grew up in church, and I sung hymns and sung in church a lot \u2026 That\u2019s really kind of what kicked off my music.\u201d\n\n\n\n<p>Crews brought his talent to&nbsp;<em>American Idol&nbsp;and garnered attention for the judges for both his voice and his personality. The energetic teen livened up the show with his rowdy cover of \u201cThe Fireman\u201d by George Strait. Carrie Underwood sang along in harmony, and Luke Bryan got roped into playing the piano and singing along with Wright.\n\n\n\n<p>The audition earned Crews a unanimous vote from the judges to advance to the Hollywood round of competition.\n\n\n\n</p><h3 class='\"wp-block-heading\"'>Story Behind \u201cThe Fireman\u201d\n\n\n\n</h3><p>\u201cThe Fireman\u201d was released as a single by George Strait in 1984. It was the third and final release from his album,&nbsp;<em>Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind.\n\n\n\n<p>The song has been covered by numerous artists, but most notably by Alan Jackson. Jackson performed the song for the&nbsp;<em>George Strait: ACM Artist of the Decade All-Star Concert&nbsp;in honor of King George.\n\n\n\n<p>Prior to paying tribute to George, Alan told the crowd, \u201cI started listening to George\u2019s music back in the \u201980s when I was a young man down in Georgia. I thought then, he\u2019s just a good ol\u2019 boy from Texas that likes country music. And after knowing him for 20 years, you take all that hit stuff away from him, he still seems like a good ol\u2019 boy from Texas that likes country music.\u201d\n\n\n\n</p><p>Alan explained that he chose to cover \u201cThe Fireman\u201d because it\u2019s a song he sang \u201cmany a night in a smoky bar just wishing I was George Strait back then.\u201d\n\n\n\n<figure class='\"wp-block-embed' is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio><div class='\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"'>\n<iframe loading='\"lazy\"' title='\"Alan' jackson i the fireman width='\"500\"' height='\"375\"' src="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/www.youtube.com%5C/embed%5C/7kJb2kVEplE?feature=oembed%5C%22" frameborder='\"0\"' allow='\"accelerometer;' autoplay clipboard-write encrypted-media gyroscope picture-in-picture web-share referrerpolicy='\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"' allowfullscreen>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class='\"mh-excerpt\"'><p>17-year-old Crews Wright stood in front of the judges to showcase his voice and his showmanship with a cover of George Strait\u2019s \u201cThe Fireman.\u201d The <a class='\"mh-excerpt-more\"' href="%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/runeecho.com%5C/american-idol-alabama-teen-earns-golden-ticket-with-rowdy-george-strait-cover%5C/%5C%22" title='\"AMERICAN' idol: alabama teen earns golden ticket with rowdy george strait cover>[&hellip;]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8989,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987\/revisions\/8989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeecho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}</a></p></div></iframe></div></figure></p></em></p></em></p></em></p></a></p></em></h2></a></p></a></p>