King George was crowned with Billboard's highest accolade in touring on Nov. 14, 2013...at their Awards held in New York City's Roosevelt Hotel....
George started the evening by walking the red carpet and posing with various Billboard executives, journalists and other guests, as you can see on the photo above and a few below....
....with Ray Waddell....he presented the Legend of Live Award to George on stage...Ray also wrote an extensive article detailing George's career and influence in country music for Billboard's special issue "King George" published in August 2013....
....with Louis Messina and his team...."the 3 blondes"....as they call these lovely ladies who insure the wheels on George's tours spin smoothly....;)
Pretty closeup on the red carpet (above)....and a big laugh backstage before the awards got started....(below)....
Once George took the stage, he had fun with his acceptance speech:
"I feel like I fit right in here," he said, then started to trip on his numbers. "I stared touring about Eighteen ninety – well, it feels like that anyway. I started touring in 1981. Back then I started taking Billboard magazine. I haven't missed too many copies. I've read almost every one of them. About the first thing I ever looked at was Boxscores. I wanted to see where I matched up in that whole deal. I just wanted to be on that page. And finally I was – I played the bars and honky tonks and stuff in the ‘70s, I finally signed with MCA in 1981 and started realizing my dream of going out on tour and playing for the fans out there and started gathering more fans and playing so many of these venues I've seen tonight.
"It's just been a wonderful career," Strait continued, "And when they told me I was gonna get the Legend of Live Award, we were joking ‘LOL,' you know. I thought "OMG. WTF. And BTW"– I got a lot of people to thank for this. I tell ya, I've been touring so long that I kinda got it through the years. Part of it got a little hard for me and the burnout thing was happening. I've always loved the shows – don't get me wrong, but all the other stuff that goes along with it I kinda got tired of. Thanks to Louis Messina for making it fun again for me out there, and giving me a lot years on his team."
