George Strait:
George Strait is an American country music singer and guitarist who was born in Poteet, Texas, on May 18, 1952. He is a well-known representative of the “New Traditionalist” movement. His most well-known contribution to the revival of Western swing and honky-tonk music from the 1930s and 1940s is his simple musical approach and his composed, uncomplicated stage presence. During the 1980s and 1990s, George Strait was one of the most well-liked performers on stage and on record, and his performances kept packing stadiums well into the twenty-first century.
Pearsall, a little hamlet in southern Texas, is where George Strait was raised. In addition to teaching math at a junior high school, his father operated a ranch in southwest Texas, some 40 miles (64 km) away, on property that had been owned by the Strait family for almost a century. When George Strait was younger, he spent a lot of weekends with his brother roping cattle, riding horses, and learning about the values and way of life of the rural West. But he didn’t immediately embrace country music. Rather, despite his meager guitar talents at the time, he was more interested in performing the newest rock songs with his high school garage band.
Following a year of study at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University–San Marcos), George Strait married Norma Voss, his high school sweetheart, and joined the U.S. Army in 1971. He developed a strong love for country music while stationed in Hawaii, particularly the works of Hank Williams, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and most famously, Bob Wills, the champion of Western swing. He also honed his guitar playing and voice abilities. He joined his first country band at his military post in 1973 while he was still in the Army.
After leaving the Army in 1975, George Strait went back to Southwest Texas State University and earned a degree in agriculture in 1979. He joined the country band Stoney Ridge (later renamed Ace in the Hole) while he was a college student, and the group frequently played at local bars. Record business executives rejected Strait’s repeated excursions to Nashville to promote his music because they didn’t think his traditional approach would appeal to a market that was dominated by pop-country sounds and polished imagery.
In 1981, MCA Records finally decided to take a chance on him and signed him to a one-song deal, promising a lengthier one if the song was successful. After that single, “Unwound” (1981), peaked at number six on Billboard magazine’s Hot Country Songs chart, Strait signed a long-term contract with MCA and began his career as a professional musician.
Strait put out over a dozen albums over the course of the following ten years, each of which sold over a million copies. He released Strait from the Heart (1982), which had his first number-one country hit, “Fool Hearted Memory,” shortly after his honky-tonk debut album Strait Country (1981). For the lighthearted song “All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” he was nominated for his first Grammy in 1988 for Best Male Vocal Performance. His fame was further enhanced by his role as a country music superstar in the 1992 movie Pure Country.
Jennifer, Strait’s 13-year-old daughter, died in an automobile accident in 1986. After her passing, he stopped doing interviews but kept performing and recording songs. He and his spouse founded the Jennifer Strait Memorial Foundation in 1987, a nonprofit that collects money for San Antonio-based charities that support children.
Strait remained extraordinarily busy, releasing approximately one studio album every year into the early 2000s. The Grammy Award for Best Country Album went to his 2008 album Troubadour. In 2009, he went into composition, co-writing three tracks on Twang alongside his son, George (“Bubba”) Strait Jr. Nearly fifty of Strait’s songs had peaked at the top of Billboard’s country songs list by 2010.
He seldom deviated from his traditional sound or his rancher persona throughout his career, which was characterized by Western button-down shirts, blue jeans, cowboy hats, and boots. In addition, he continued to host the yearly George Strait Team Roping Classic, which he founded with his father and brother in the early 1980s, because he never gave up his passion for equestrian riding.
Strait declared in September 2012 that his 2013–14 Cowboy Rides Away Tour, which began in May 2013 simultaneously with the release of his album Love Is Everything, would be his last tour, despite the fact that he was still a potent live performer. He earned the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award for the third time during the end of the tour in late 2013, after winning it in 1989 and 1990. In 2015, Strait released Cold Beer Conversation, his 29th studio album. The following year, he started living in Las Vegas. He went on to release Cowboys and Dreamers in 2024 and Honky Tonk Time Machine in 2019.
George Strait was admitted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006. The Country Music Association presented him with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He received recognition from the Kennedy Center in 2025 after being admitted into the association in 2024.