Want to hear about George Strait's audition for the Ace In The Hole band?

The lead singer for the Ace In The Hole band fired the entire band and they needed a new lead singer. What did they do and who did they find? Amazing story and do you want to know the first song George Strait sang with his new band......dive in as Mike Daily tells Bob the story.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Bob Pikett. This is Bob Pickett Radio. Got a
great story for you today. Had a chance to visit
with Mike Daily and John Michael Whitby of The Ace
and the Whole Band the other day on my other podcast,
Tales and Broken Spoke, which if you haven't dove into
that podcast and listened to it, it's amazing. Of course,
it's all about the world famous Broken Spoke on South
Lamar in Austin, Texas. But getting back to this podcast now,

(00:22):
Mike Daily told me how George Strait got the job
to be the lead singer of the Ace and the
Whole Band. Yeah, there was an Ace in the Whole
Band before there was George Strait singing for it. It
was an audition and well what happened was the former
lead singer of As and the Whole Band had fired
the band after a gig at the Split Rail in Austin,

(00:45):
so they had to come up with another lead singer. Well,
here's Mike with a story right now.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
That's how that came into being. And then, of course
the story is that Jay got mad at us one
night we're playing Split Rail actually, and he fired the
whole band.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
The next day, So we had no singer. Boy, not
a smart move at all, Crazy, isn't it. Do you
think about changing the name of the band to Revenge?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Uh, well that would have been good. Yeah. So, yeah,
we were without a singer and most all of us
are going to school at Southwest Texas State, and you know,
the story goes, George was in the army, got out
of the army, he came back to go to school
on the GI bill. He'd been in a country band

(01:42):
in Hawaii. His general had wanted about four different bands
to play at the USO Club or something, I guess.
So anyway, George, you know, started getting into the country
over there, and then when he got back over here
signed up at school. He was kind of looking for
a band. Well, we didn't have a singer, you know,

(02:04):
so we put up the bulletin board student center. You
know how he used to people put looking for a roommate,
and yeah, there was various musicians or bands looking for people,
and you know, we put our thing up their country
band looking for singer. You know. George called up, you know,

(02:26):
and it was Ron, then lead guitar player. It was
at his house we used to practice. Said yeah, man,
come on over. We had tried a couple of other.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
People, so he had auditions. What you're telling me he
had auditioned to join the band.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, I mean, I think it was more to see,
you know, yeah, you fit what we're doing, and we
fit what you were looking for, you know, And because
you'll you'll read George's bio stuff, and he had the
story was when he's in Hawaii and the Army, he'd

(03:04):
bought a couple of Hank Williams songbooks and taught himself
to play classic game william songs. So anyway, but he
was you know, Bob Willis, Merle Haggard, George Jones or whatever.
And we were not quite so mainstream are hardcore country
as you want to call it, And don't remember exactly

(03:26):
what we played, but it was country and some swing
and whatnot. So but we were yeah, we were just
you know, we'd been through a couple of singers. We
tried a girl singer that didn't work out, and we
tried a friend of mine that lives out Wemberley and
he was more of a bluegrass type tone to his voice.
And so that was during the summer and everybody was

(03:47):
out of school and I guess it was when the
semester was starting back in September, because I guess George
was going to be starting school, and so you know,
that's how we hook up. And I mean my recollection
that long time ago is it.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
You know, he George showed.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Up at the house practice house there and we said, well, well,
what do you know? Well, what do y'all know?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
You know, like, what what do y'all play?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
What do we play?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
What do you sing?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
And so again my recollection is we said, well, how
about Fraul line. I mean, there's a song everybody knows
in Texas.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
You think they would, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
And of course George knew it. We knew it from
playing it, so you know, kick it off, you know, one, two, three,
you know, start playing for all line. George sang about
the first two lines out of his mouth and it's like, well,
I don't think we need to look any further.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And that was nineteen seventy five. Well that happened. Can
you imagine being in that room? Anyway, great story for
Mike Daily, and we got more stories. Mike Daily also
John Michael Whidby keyboard player for the Ace of the
Whole Band. Check it out now. We just launched a
new episode, new season of Tales Broken Spoke what you
can listen to on the iHeartRadio opp But yeah, can
you imagine that Frauline. You'll never listen to that song.

(05:19):
I would love to hear George sing that song in
concert again, would you. It is a Bob Picket Radio podcast.
New episodes dropping the course next week. Catch up with
me on Instagram Bob Picket Radio Instagram, and check out
all those video interviews too that we've been going through.
You're going to find them on my YouTube channel, Bob
Picket Radio. We'll see you on the radio right here.
iHeartRadio stations all across this great country. It's Bob Picket,

(05:42):
Bob Pickett Radio. Thanks for listening and remember keep it
country