Whoever mentioned the Opry not being as big in Texas makes a good point. Waylon Jennings was speaking the truth when he sang that the Opry was the home of country music, but in Texas that didn't mean a thing. Country music east of Texas developed around the radio "barn dances" like the Opry, the Louisiana Hayride, and the others, but in Texas it was driven by western swing and honky tonk at the dancehalls on Saturday night. A "hillbilly music" performer would have dreamed of performing in that dark oak circle where Roy Acuff, the Delmore Brothers, and the like performed, but to a guy with George's roots, following in the footsteps of Bob Wills and playing the legendary Texas dancehalls would have been a bigger dream.
Now, on a tangent that was mentioned above, the "George is overrated because he doesn't write his own stuff!" camp annoys me immensely. To me, George's method is an admirable and impressive one. He figured out early on that others are far more talented writers than he is, so rather than record his own material which he considered substandard, why not take his singing and performance abilities, combine that with the superior writing abilities of guys who maybe weren't his caliber of singer and performer, and create the perfect storm of great country music?
Sure, it's impressive that the Beatles wrote all their #1s, don't get me wrong. But I get annoyed when George gets derided for not writing his music. If you want to deride someone, deride the country artists who are lesser writers than George and still record and perform that shallow, mediocre crap anyway. Or, as rbtexan pointed out not long ago, deride the industry powers-that-be who are forcing singer-written material onto records to save paying royalties to songwriters.
And for what it's worth, I think George sold himself short as a songwriter. Those first three songs on "Strait Out of the Box" Disc 1 are quality honky tonk tunes.
