SAN MARCOS HISTORY
Kennedy Center ceremony honoring George Strait airs Tuesday
In August, former San Marcos resident George Strait was named a 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree, a moment that felt both historic and deeply personal to those of us who watched him come up. It was a well-deserved salute to a halfcentury career built on integrity, tradition and a true Texas sound that never chased trends — only the truth in the song.
John Clark, associate editor of the San Marcos Record, contacted me and asked for a quote about the early days of George Strait and Ace in the Hole at Cheatham Street Warehouse. My late husband, Kent Finlay and I owned Cheatham Street Warehouse, which had opened in 1974 to promote and preserve Texas music and musicians.
When we spoke, I told John that so many of us would like to say, “We told you so,” about George Strait’s success, but Kent Finlay was the first. When the former Stoney Ridge band auditioned George to be their new lead singer, they knew they’d found their “Ace in the Hole.”
Kent was the first to say that the sky was the limit for George. Hundreds of SWT students came through our doors to see Ace in the Hole back in those years. And everyone gets to own a part of those early days, San Marcos, Texas State University and Cheatham Street Warehouse were all fortunate to be here when it all started, when the band first auditioned on October 13, 1975. It’s hard to believe that was a half-century ago.
George was an agriculture student at Texas State University (then, Southwest Texas State) and had been playing with Ace in the Hole for about three years in 1977, when Kent loaded his yellow Dodge cargo van with a folding chair, an army cot, an ice chest and some guitars, and took George to Nashville for the first time.
Our songwriter friend, Darrell Staedtler (“Blame It on Mexico,” “A Fire I Can’t Put Out,” “80 Proof Bottle of Tear-Stopper,” etc…) and Kent knocked on doors up and down Music Row – talking to friends and friends of friends and complete strangers who were running the record labels. They recorded some demos and did all they could, but the music executives said he was too country for Nashville. At the time, Ronnie Milsap and Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, and even Tom Jones were topping the “country” charts.
Well, as the old Bob Wills song goes, “Time Changes Everything.” In case you have not been keeping up, since those early days, the Pearsall native has had more number one hit singles than any other artist in history in a single genre. He has received every prestigious award in his field, holding the record for the most awards from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, and was named to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2023, Rolling Stone named him to their list of “Greatest Singers of All Time.” Last year, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received the ninth Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association.
But the Kennedy Center Honor is more than just another feather in his cowboy hat. The Kennedy Center Medal is presented to performing artists for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. George is only the 11th country music artist to garner this award, joining Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, among others.
When George and Ace in the Hole bandmates Terry Hale and Mike Daily were students at Texas State, and playing every week at Cheatham Street Warehouse, they all took Kent’s History of Country Music class, a popular elective in the History Department, and a precursor to what would become the Center for Texas Music History. Their shared classroom experience helped shape a generation of musicians, scholars and storytellers.
Their textbook was Bill C. Malone’s definitive history of the genre, “Country Music USA” (University of Texas Press). Bill, a former history professor at Texas State, is, according to PBS, “widely recognized as country music’s ranking senior authority.” Ken Burns leaned heavily on Bill’s “Country Music USA” (50th anniversary edition, published in 2018) as his primary source and inspiration when he created his award-winning “Country Music” eightpart documentary series.
I had breakfast with Bill and Bobbie Malone in San Antonio recently and we talked about George’s career. Bill said, “Old time country music still survives because of people like George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris. I was just so glad to see somebody like him come along. I just was so impressed with his ability to move from the smooth pop sounds to hard country, which I really love. Even in the pop sounds, he always maintained those traditional instruments, you know? He’s always had a steel player. He’s had a fiddle player. He’s held on to that classic country sound for all these years.
“George Strait has always had such a versatile voice. He can sing anything - from pop to swing to country, because he understands how to do something with his throat, and can go from smooth to twangy. And for somebody who majored in agriculture, there’s something to be said about that musical talent.”
So what was the secret to George’s 50+ year career success? Bill Malone says that George never tried to sound like someone else. While they inspired his singing style, and he had touches of Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys when no one else was doing that, he didn’t sound like Ernest Tubb or George Jones or any other classic Texans. He brought a new look to country music while holding onto the traditions that have made the uniquely American sound of country music popular for more than a century.
Cheatham Street celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. The local music venue established a reputation early on as a training ground where George started his musical career. Our memories of the good old days, when George and Stevie Ray Vaughan both played every week – with no cover for ladies were priceless. Through the years, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Todd Snider, Charlie Robison, Townes Van Zant, Guy Clark, Asleep At The Wheel, James McMurtry, Marcia Ball, Sunny Sweeney, Shelley King, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Original Texas Playboys, Ernest Tubb, and a long list of people I don’t have room to name here came through the doors and stepped up on that wooden stage to play. Some were legends and even more were going to be legends.
We are all proud to have been a small part of the George Strait story. So yes, today, whatever part they played in the early days of George’s career they played, fans, friends, professors and classmates, Kent can be joined by thousands of others in saying, “I Told You So!”
The 48th Kennedy Center Honors will broadcast on CBS and Paramount+ Tuesday, Dec. 23, at 7 p.m. CT
Diana Finlay Hendricks is a San Marcos native and an acclaimed writer, journalist, editor, photographer and cultural historian known for her work on Texas and Southern music, food, and culture. From 1987 to 1998, she served as a columnist and features editor for the San Marcos Daily Record. In 2025, she was honored as a recipient of the Texas State University Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Award.
Diana holds a Master of Arts degree, with an emphasis on Texas music and culture, and a Bachelor of Arts degree, with an emphasis in Texas music history and mass communications. Throughout her career, she has contributed to publications including the Journal of Texas Music History, Real Southwest Magazine and Lone Star Music, writing about music, travel, food and regional culture for both local and national audiences.
She is the author of several books, most notably Delbert McClinton: One of the Fortunate Few (Texas A&M University Press, 2017; revised edition 2022), widely regarded as a definitive portrait of the legendary Texas musician.
