George Strait ‘Sang Country Music For The Army’
The King of Country Music, George Strait, started out singing country songs while he was stationed in the army as a young man. With Veterans Day just days away (11/11), George told us about his army days back in the 1970s.
The country icon said, “Well, I joined the Army. I spent three years in the service. I had basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, then went up for AIT in Fort Ben Harrison, Indiana. And then my final duty station was at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I spent two and a half years in Hawaii, two years in the Army, and then I stayed there six months after I got out.”
He added, “And so… The last year I was in the Army is when I started singing country music and the general, the post command in general started bands out of military personnel and I got the job as the singer in the country band. And so that’s what I did. I sang country music for the Army.”
The singer debuted the first release from his 31st album, Cowboys And Dreamers, with “MIA Down in MIA” one day before his 72nd birthday in May. Cowboys And Dreamers was released on September 6, 2024.
When he announced the new work, he said in a statement, “I’m dedicating this record to my longtime manager and friend Erv Woolsey and my longtime fiddle player and friend Gene Elders (a player on four of these tracks), who we lost on the same day, March 20, 2024, as well as my longtime friend and road manager Tom Foote, who we lost on April 29, 2024.”
RELATED: George Strait Shares ‘Three Drinks Behind’
Strait’s 27th No. 1 Billboard Country album, Cowboys And Dreamers, features 13 new songs, including three already released tracks — “Three Drinks Behind,” “MIA Down in MIA” and “The Little Things” — as well as “Honky Tonk Hall Of Fame” featuring Chris Stapleton, and George’s rendition of Waylon Jennings’ “Waymore’s Blues.”
George told us about the title cut of his new album, “Here’s a song written by Jesse Joe Dillon, Keith Gaddis, and my son Bubba Strait. It’s called ‘Cowboys and Dreamers,’ and it’s a really cool song.”
He added, “So cool that I thought that I should name the whole album after it. And you know, sometimes I feel like the last of a dying breed trying to find where I fit. That pretty much says it all in ‘Cowboys and Dreamers.’”
Strait had a big weekend in June (6/15) when he set a record for the largest single ticketed concert in U.S. history and a new record for Texas A&M Kyle Field for a single event with 110,905 fans in attendance.
