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“SOME LEGENDS ALMOST WALK AWAY BEFORE THEIR STORY BEGINS.” In the late 1970s, George Strait nearly quit music altogether. He had accepted a steady job designing cattle pens in Uvalde, weary of chasing a dream that seemed to slip further away. Norma quickly noticed the change. “I didn’t want to live with him like that,” she recalled. Her encouragement gave George one last push — a promise to try for just one more year. That decision changed everything. With help from his friend Erv Woolsey, George traveled back to Nashville, only to hear again that his voice was “too country.” Rejected but not broken, he and Erv convinced MCA executives to hear the Ace In The Hole Band live in a Texas honky-tonk. This time, the spark caught. George was offered a single: a heartbroken drinking song called “Unwound.” Released in May 1981, just days before his 29th birthday, the track climbed to No. 6. George remembered hearing it on the radio while still working as a ranch foreman — shocked to recognize his own voice climbing the charts. That success led to his debut album, Strait Country, and soon after, his first No. 1 with “Fool Hearted Memory.” But Nashville wanted to mold him. They told him to lose the hat, soften the sound, lean into pop polish. George resisted. “They were trying to make me into something else, but I was too hardheaded,” he later said. By the time his fourth album was underway, he had the confidence to push back. With hits on the charts and awards in hand, George Strait claimed control of his music — and in doing so, set the course for a career that would honor tradition while rewriting history.