Lee Ann Womack Surprises George Strait

Lee Ann Womack photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

May 26, 2009 — George Strait: ACM Artist Of The Decade All Star Concert airs on CBS Wednesday, and while the honor itself was no secret to George the night he received it, one of the performances came as a complete surprise.

The special was shot in Las Vegas April 6, one day after the Academy of Country Music handed out its annual awards. Lee Ann joined Jamey Johnson for a duet version of "Give It Away," then sang a solo. The song she handled on her own was written specifically for the special and then kept hidden until the big night.

"I got a call one afternoon from my agent who said, ‘The guys who are directing and producing this show need you to call them,’" Lee Ann recalls. "So I called them, and they said, ‘We have a surprise for George, and we want to see if you’ll help us with it.’ And I said, ‘Well, what is it? I don’t know how much George likes surprises on national TV.’ And they sent me the song, and I thought, ‘He’s really going to love this.’ And he told a room full of people at a reception afterward that he got really emotional and really choked up, and he thought if there were ever a moment in the night he was going to lose it, it was during that song. It was a song that was written specifically for that event. I know he was very, very grateful to the writers for having done that."

Lee Ann has a good relationship with George. They shared the Country Music Association award for Vocal Event of the Year in 2005 for "Good News, Bad News," and he sang on "Everything But Quits" from her current Call Me Crazy album.

Among others on the ACM Artist Of The Decade special are Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Jack Ingram, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert, Sugarland and Taylor Swift, among others.