NASHVILLE, Tenn. – George Strait is getting ready to park his tour bus.

The enduring country music superstar announced Wednesday during a news conference at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum that he will embark on his final tour early next year. Strait will play 21 dates in 2013, then 20 more in 2014 on The Cowboy Rides Away tour. He plans to continue recording music and making occasional live appearances after that, but his road warrior days will soon be over.

“I just don’t want to go to the point where I show up and nobody else does, you know?” Strait said in an interview before making the announcement. “It’s been great. I’ve been doing it for 30-some odd years and I’ve loved it. Sometimes I’ve not liked it as much. And here lately it’s just the walking out onstage part, that’s all great. I’m still loving that. It’s just the hectic part about touring and traveling and bam bam bam bam. I just feel like it’s time for me to try something else.”

News of Strait’s retirement will come as something of a shock in country quarters. He’s so entrenched in the genre he’s become part of the bedrock.

The 60-year-old Country Music Hall of Fame member from Texas released his first single “Unwound” in 1981, before some of today’s top stars were born. Since then he’s had 59 No. 1 country singles and is the only artist to score a Top 10 hit in every year of his career. All his albums have gone platinum or gold, selling more than 68 million copies.

Traditional country singer Joe Nichols acknowledged Strait’s impact when he called the singer “the Rolling Stones of country music” in a 2010 interview.

And in a lot of ways, that’s been true. Until now. The Stones refuse to retire from the road, while Strait has decided to do it on his own terms.

“I’m sure I’ll miss it. I’m sure I will,” Strait said. “How can you not after doing it for so long. It was a hard decision to make. … But I think about midway through this tour I’ll realize that, yeah, I did make the right decision.”

TLC orders bunch of Honey Boo Boo specials

NEW YORK – Get ready for some Honey Boo Boo holidays.

The TLC network said Wednesday that it has ordered Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials focusing on its seven-year-old breakout star, Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson. The series airs its 10th and final episode of its debut season on Wednesday.

The show centers around Thompson, her mother June Shannon and their rural Georgia family and has been a breakout hit for the cable network. Thompson’s outgoing personality and catchphrases like “A dolla makes me holla” made her a star, although some critics suggest the show mocks small-town Southern life.

Hathaway will exercise pipes, ‘Cabaret’ style

NEW YORK – Anne Hathaway is ready to show off another side — her singing side.

The Academy Award nominee will perform songs from the musical “Cabaret” for a one-night-only concert Oct. 24 to celebrate the revitalization of The Public Theatre’s downtown home.

The Public says Hathaway will croon several of the iconic musical’s songs, including “Willkommen,” “Cabaret,” “Maybe This Time” and “Perfectly Marvelous” at Joe’s Pub.

Tickets range from $100 to $300 and include food and drinks.

Hathaway, who starred in the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park production of “Twelfth Night” in 2009, recently starred as Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises” and recently wrapped “Les Miserables” opposite Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.

– From news service reports