George Strait spent two nights at Austin’s Moody Center this weekend, a reminder that at 73, he still draws a crowd by doing the same thing that made him a country standard-bearer in the first place. He sings the songs, keeps the spotlight on the music and lets the years do the rest.
That career has stretched from a 1982 cameo in the action film The Soldier to his starring role in the 1992 musical drama Pure Country, but the numbers tell the story best. Strait’s first No. 1 hit, “Fool-Hearted Memory,” turned up in the honky-tonk scene in The Soldier, and Pure Country produced two more No. 1 hits, “I Cross My Heart” and “Heartland,” on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart.
Before the fame hardened around him, Strait was already building the life that would later feed his songs. He and Norma Voss welcomed their first child, Jenifer Lyn Strait, in 1972 while he was serving in the Army in Hawaii, where he sang in a band that entertained troops. After his deployment ended in 1975, the family moved to San Marcos so he could attend Southwest Texas State University, where he studied agriculture on the G.I. Bill and joined the Ace in the Hole Band. After graduating in 1979, he worked as a ranch manager at Hart Ranch in Martindale, and when “Unwound” hit the radio in 1981, he was still ranch foreman. The song led to a record deal with MCA and his debut album, Strait Country.
Then came the loss that Strait has rarely discussed in public. On June 25, 1986, Jenifer, 13, was riding in a Ford Mustang with three friends near the family’s home in San Marcos when the driver took a turn too fast and the car rolled just before midnight. She was the only fatality. Strait was home at the time and reached the scene shortly after he was notified, then returned to work and was back on the road three weeks later. He stopped giving interviews for many years after her death, saying in 2017, “I just kind of shut down,” and, “I just didn’t feel like talking about it, so I quit doing interviews.”
Fans have long speculated that the 1988 song “Baby Blue” was written for Jenifer, but Strait has never said so. He did say in 2005 that “You’ll Be There” from Somewhere Down in Texas reminded him of her. By the mid-90s, the family was settled in San Antonio, and the shape of Strait’s public life had changed: less talking, more singing, and a catalog that carried the weight of what he would not. The question answered by his Austin run is simple enough. At 73, george strait is still a live draw because the music has outlasted the sorrow without ever quite leaving it behind.
