In 2018, co-headliners Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton served up a surprise for attendees of the annual Crash My Playa Festival. Bryan hosted the four-day concert, beach party and drinking holiday on Jan. 18-21 in Riviera Maya, Mexico. At one point, Bryan donned quite the outfit to join Shelton on stage for a musical tribute to one of George Strait's No. 1 hits.
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The duo tipped their hats to Strait with a spot-on rendition of "All My Ex's Live in Texas." The cowboy hat-tip was quite literal for Bryan, who'd dressed up as Shelton from his long-haired "hat act" days, compete with a huge belt buckle and a flowing mullet.
Bryan's wife and noted kangaroo owner Caroline posted a hilarious photo of herself and the mischievous Shelton impostor. She even played up Bryan's costume with her own "sexiest man alive" flotation device. Lina observed that her husband looked as much like himself during their college years as he resembled Shelton, circa 2003.
The jokes and laughs ended when the song began. Bryan and Shelton proved to be song interpreters who might've been stars back when a more traditionally-minded sound dominated Nashville. The cover stays true to the song's Western Swing styling, making it instantly recognizable for any Strait fans seeking a beach getaway.
"All My Ex's Live in Texas," a No. 1 for Strait in 1987, was written by Sanger D. Shafer and Lyndia J. Shafer. Sanger's version of the song can be heard in the 1989 film Road House. It went on to make a big enough cultural impact to get name-dropped in Drake's "HYFR."
And the classic country songs didn't end there. The country superstars delivered renditions of Conway Twitty's "Tight Fittin' Jeans" and Hal Ketchum's "Small Town Saturday Night."
This story originally ran on Jan. 24, 2018.
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