Braxton Keith Is Set to Release a Live Version of His Crowd-Favorite Cover of George Strait’s “The Chair”. ML

When you cover “The King,” you best not miss.

Braxton Keith stopped by the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast for our final episode of the year (don’t worry, we’ll be back in 2026). The young country star talked about how he avoids burnout with a busy touring schedule, what it’s like to play 150 shows a year, how his band is like family, and that he actually comes from a family of dentists.

Obviously, he veered off his family’s path and has become one of the shining examples of neotraditional country music. Braxton Keith is helping to keep that sound alive, and spoke on how important it is for real, genuine music to exist with the surge of AI in music as of late, and even touched on how often he’s asked if he’s related to Toby Keith.

Oh, and the “Cozy” singer discussed the viral moment that came from his cover of George Strait’s 1985 hit “The Chair.” Keith released his version of the track back in the beginning of October, and he told us that it was viral moment it was having on social media that led him to lay down a studio recording of it:

“(The virality) made me go record it. I was totally against recording it. They had to convince me for a while, management and everyone really, because you don’t cover ‘The King.’ Then they started showing me numbers and stuff, and a lot of these kids just hadn’t heard that. I was like, ‘Well, if I can drive them to some of my favorites, then I’d rather that happen. I want that to happen.’ That’s the whole reason we even covered that in the set.”

Basically, fans were loving the clips of his in-concert performances of “The Chair” so much that he was convinced to release an official studio recording.

That was a big thing for him, because as he said, it can be intimidating to cover George Strait… especially one of his most well-known songs. But Braxton Keith’s reasoning for moving forward with it makes sense. If he can help drive people towards the music of “King George,” why wouldn’t he?

The only issue that he ran into when releasing the cover? People preferred Braxton Keith singing it live. So once again, he listened to his fans, and he’s set to release a live version of the cover sooner rather than later:

“I’ve got a live version coming out here pretty soon. It’s a video of us at Floore’s. You’ll see, I say, ‘We play this one for The King. Long live The King.’ A lot of people hated on it, because they said we couldn’t cover George Strait. 

Listen, I understand that you like ‘The King.’ George Strait is one of my favorites too. But I think that we’re sharing country music to people who may not have been able to hear that before. That’s a really big and important thing to me, and if that turns you off to my music, than so be it.”

Braxton went on to explain that he was putting out the live version of “The Chair” for the people that a) have asked for it and b) prefer how the cover sounds live at shows rather than the studio recording he put out. He even admitted that a studio recording can sometimes sound too perfect, and recognizes that his cover of George Strait sounds the best when it’s live and a little imperfect.

Regardless, Braxton Keith has intertwined himself in quite the jumbling of country music wires. He’s really connecting with his fans through his cover of George Strait. In turn, his fans are discovering more from “The King.” And that’s all while he gets to honor a country music legend himself. Braxton sees all of that as a beautiful, win-win scenario:

“The kids have been reacting to it like crazy. Every show, they scream it. That’s all I really wanted. That pure country music back again.”