Lorrie Morgan Will Join the Broadway Staging of Pure Country

Pure Country Producer Randall Wreghitt announced that country star Lorrie Morgan will join fellow country singer Joe Nichols in the musical expected to open on Broadway early next year.

The play is based on the hit 1992 movie of the same name, which originally starred country music legend George Strait and actress Lesley Ann Warren. Christopher Cain of Young Guns fame directed the film.

Written by Don Fernia, the plot has Dusty Chandler (played by George Strait in the movie) as a super star in the country music world, but his performance has come to more closely resemble a 70's rock concert rather than a country show. He finally walks away from all glitz and hype and tries to find his real country roots. His friends and staff both help and hinder him along the way, but he continues in his search and finds romance along the way.

With the exception of Jon Doe as Earl, George Strait used his real band, "The Ace-In-The-Hole Band" during the shooting of the film. The group has been with Strait since the beginning of his career

A hit soundtrack to the Pure Country was released and all songs were sung by George Strait. The album was released in 1992 by MCA Records and spent 393 weeks on the Billboard's Top Country charts, peaking at position #3. Pure Country sold over 6 million copies and was Strait's most commercially successful studio album.

Pure Country was the first album of Strait's career to feature Tony Brown, who went on to produce all of Strait's ensuing albums. Strait and Brown teamed together to produce the entire album except for the main title version of the hit song Heartland which was produced by Steve Dorff.

Strait made music videos for I Cross My Heart and Heartland. Both songs were smash No. 1 hits for George on the Billboard country charts. When Did You Stop Loving Me (later covered by George Jones on his 1998 CD It Don't Get Any Better Than This) was a #6 hit.

George acted in 2 other films: The Soldier (1981), Grand Champion (2002) and was the voice of Cornell in King of the Hill (2003)

Straits career soared after releasing Pure Country. Only Elvis and the Beatles have bettered George's run of 38 hit albums (12 multi platinum, 22 platinum and four gold).

Pure Country has been adapted for the stage by Peter Masterson. It will have a score by Steve Dorff, who also wrote songs for the film, including two No. 1 country singles, Heartland and I Cross My Heart. Both Dorff songs will be used in the stage version.

Rob Rheubottom