Blake Shelton, George Strait Sing Each Other's Praises Ahead of Gillette Stadium Show

Blake Shelton will return to being an opening act on August 17, when he opens for George Strait at [...]

By Gayle Thompson

Blake Shelton will return to being an opening act on August 17, when he opens for George Strait at Strait's Gillette Stadium concert in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The two singers are already singing each other's praises, even though the concert is still a month away.

"I don't think you'll find a country music artist in the genre that doesn't look up to George Strait," Shelton said in a video he tweeted. "And if you do, they need to be kicked out."

"He truly is the King of Country Music," he added, "and he always will be."

"He's a great guy," Strait said of Shelton. "Great singer, songwriter, just a really good guy. I enjoy being around Blake."

Strait isn't the only contry music icon Shelton is rubbing shoulders with. The "God's Country" singer recently just recorded a duet, "Dive Bar," with Garth Brooks, which is currently at radio.

"He just tapped back into that mid-'90s stuff when I was deciding I wanted to be a country singer and all I could imagine was being the next Garth Brooks," Shelton told The Tennessean. "He didn't need me on this, but I'm not going to tell him that."

When Shelton found out Brooks was going to reach out to him, he agreed to do it without even listening to "Dive Bar."

"I said, 'If you're asking me to sing a duet with you … I'm going to tell you right now even without hearing the song; I'm apt to say, 'Hell yes, I'll do it,' " Shelton recounted. "He laughed and said, 'You should at least hear the song.'"

Shelton's manager told him that Brooks was going to call him, with Shelton admitting he couldn't think of anything else until his phone rang.

"I just sat around and waited," Shelton recounted. "He said, 'I've got this song I wrote. I wanted to see if I could send it over to you and you tell me what you think about it.' It was kind of like that."

Cody Johnson and Caitlyn Smith will also serve as opening acts for the Gillette Stadium show. Tickets for all of Strait's upcoming concerts can be found by visiting GeorgeStrait.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images / Terry Wyatt

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