David Houston; Grand Ole Opry Singer

Grand Ole Opry star David Houston, who won a Grammy for the 1966 million-selling country music classic “Almost Persuaded,” died Tuesday at the age of 57.

Houston suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm Thanksgiving Day and never regained consciousness, said Paul Hockett, spokesman for Bossier Medical Center in Bossier City, La., where Houston died.

“Almost Persuaded” chronicled a honky-tonk flirtation in which a married man considered cheating on his wife.

“A song like that comes along once in a lifetime,” Houston said in a 1977 interview.

He was one of the most successful country singers in the mid-1960s and had performed with the Grand Ole Opry since 1972.

Among his other hits were “Already It’s Heaven,” “You Mean the World to Me,” “Can’t You Feel It?,” “The Twelfth of Never,” “I Love You, I Love You” and “With One Exception.”

Houston and Barbara Mandrell were duet partners in the early 1970s. He also recorded “My Elusive Dreams” with Tammy Wynette in 1967.

Houston, who lived in Kenner, La., last appeared in the Opry on Nov. 6. He had not been an active recording artist for the past 10 years.

Houston first worked the Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport, La., when he was 12 years old. In 1963, Epic Records signed him based on his song “Mountain of Love.”