With more than 50 No. 1 singles and more than 30 gold records on his resume, George Strait would make just about any songwriter happy by recording one of his or her songs. So it's a safe bet that he gets the cream of the crop sent to him.

Despite that, George — GAC's Artist of the Month for April — still has a tough time finding the right material for his albums. He views the songs he records as the make-or-break element in his career, and he's extremely selective about what makes the grade. He's been known to turn down songs that he knew were hits, simply because he didn't feel they would work for him. In fact, George and producer Tony Brown spend 12 months looking for songs every time they make an album, just to find the right collection.

"It's not easy to find great songs," George says. "You've got to be constantly looking for them. And I've been fortunate enough to have been able to find a lot of them, I think, due to some great songwriters that just keep sending them my way. It's a struggle every year to find them, but they're out there."

Because he's so diligent, those songs often end up on George's albums. In the latest example, "I Saw God Today" is currently at No. 2 on the national country singles charts. And the album it came from, Troubadour, has topped the Billboard country album chart two weeks in a row.