Rise to Fame
In 1979, he was one failed Nashville trip away from becoming a full-time rancher. His wife Norma talked him into one more year. MCA Records signed him in 1981 for a single deal only: chart it and get an album, bomb and disappear. "Unwound" reached #6. His debut album Strait Country landed like a counterweight to the pop-country slickness dominating Nashville at the time. He wasn't trying to cross over. He was playing honky-tonk the way Texas dance halls demanded it.
In the Spotlight
The "King of Country Music" nickname was never just a courtesy title. He holds the record for most #1 songs of any artist in any genre: 60 total, including 44 on the Billboard Hot Country chart alone. His 2014 farewell tour ended with 104,793 fans at AT&T Stadium, then he didn't retire. In June 2024, he drew 110,905 to Kyle Field, breaking the U.S. record for the largest ticketed solo concert. His 2025 stadium tour with Chris Stapleton is already booked. The farewell was apparently a warm-up.
Side Notes
Before Nashville ever heard of him, he had a degree in agriculture and a 2,000-acre cattle ranch waiting as a backup plan. That wasn't posturing. His father actually ran the ranch. When the music almost didn't pan out in 1979, walking away wasn't theoretical. The Texas dance-hall circuit he built his chops on treated country music as working-class ritual, not radio product. His daughter Jenifer's death in a car accident in 1986 sent him into a years-long withdrawal from press. What Nashville got from him was always the public fraction of a genuinely private man.