When the announcement came that George Strait was to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, there were those who thought it was premature. After all, Strait is only in his early 50s, and with 53 #1s, more than anyone else in Nashville history, he is still an active working artist, not the sort who sits back on a million-acre ranch remembering when. But one spin through It Just Comes Natural and it's obvious why the quiet Texan deserved his induction now. He simply has no mainstream peer, for either his consistency on the charts or his continuing to raise the bar with his confident, nuanced performance. Here, on an album recorded in Key West, Strait sounds even more relaxed than usual, as if he took more time to live with the songs--15 in all--before he recorded them. Throughout, he amply demonstrates his ability to choose material that pushes the country genre beyond its core themes of God, family, and patriotism while still staying traditional. So many of the songs catch one off guard, either because of their different subject matter (the way the lyric of "Come on Joe" gradually tells us the dead never really leave the living) or in their sophisticated approach to a routine topic (the head-spinning recognition of an old flame in Bruce Robison's "Wrapped"). Then there's the artistry with which producer Tony Brown's handpicked studio cats elevate an already great song even higher (a sizzling cover of Guy Clark's folk/honky-tonk/Western swing classic "Texas Cookin'"). Twenty-five years after his recording debut, Strait is still as crisp as the crease in his Wranglers. Yet the leader of the Ace in the Hole band has yet another card up his freshly starched sleeve. The man who doesn't talk in concert and rarely speaks to reporters leads off with "Give It Away," a divorce-and-damage saga set off by--surprise--a recitation! --Alanna Nash