Toby Keith

Toby Keith
Toby Keith performs for the troops at the O'Callahan's Cantina at Camp LeMonier, Djibouti, on May 31, 2006.
Background information
Birth name	Toby Keith Covel
Born	July 8, 1961 (1961-07-08) (age 48)
Origin	Clinton, Oklahoma, U.S.
Genre(s)	Country
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1993-present
Label(s)	Polydor A&M Mercury DreamWorks Nashville Show Dog Nashville
Associated acts	Scotty Emerick Lindsey Haun
Website	TobyKeith.com

Toby Keith Covel (born July 8, 1961) is an American country music singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor. Keith released his first four studio albums — 1993's Toby Keith, 1994's Boomtown, 1996's Blue Moon and 1997's Dream Walkin', plus a Greatest Hits package — for various divisions of Mercury Records before exiting in 1998. These albums all earned gold or higher certification, and produced several chart singles, including his debut "Should've Been a Cowboy", which topped the country charts.

Signed to Dreamworks Records in 1999, Keith released his breakthrough single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" that year. This song, the title track to his 2000 album of the same name, was the Number One country song of 2000, and one of several chart-toppers during his tenure on Dreamworks. His next three albums, Pull My Chain, Unleashed, and Shock'n Y'all, produced three more Number Ones each, and all of the albums were certified multi-platinum by the RIAA. A second Greatest Hits package followed in 2004, and after that, he released Honkytonk University.

When Dreamworks closed in 2005, Keith founded his own label, Show Dog Nashville. In addition to releasing his next two studio albums (2006's White Trash with Money and 2007's Big Dog Daddy, as well as the 2008 compilation 35 Biggest Hits), Keith has signed several other acts to the label, including Carter's Chord, Flynnville Train and Mica Roberts. Keith also made his acting debut in 2005, starring in the film Broken Bridges. A second film, Beer for My Horses, followed in 2008.

Overall, Keith has released ten studio albums, two Christmas albums, and multiple compilation albums. He has also charted more than forty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including seventeen Number One hits and eighteen additional Top Ten hits. His longest-lasting Number One hits are "Beer for My Horses" (a 2003 duet with Willie Nelson) and "As Good as I Once Was" (2005), at six weeks apiece.

Early life

Keith was born in Clinton, Oklahoma, the son of Carolyn Joan (née Ross) and Hubert K. Covel Jr.^[1][2] He has a sister, Tonni, and a brother, Tracy. His family moved to Moore, Oklahoma (a suburb of Oklahoma City) when Keith was young.^[2] His grandmother owned a supper club and Keith became interested in the musicians who came there to play.^[2] He got his first guitar at the age of eight.^[2] Keith attended Highland West Junior High and Moore High School where he played Defensive End on the football team.^[2]

Keith graduated from Moore High School and, in 1979, went to work as a derrick hand in the booming oil fields of Oklahoma. He worked his way up to become an operation manager. At the age of 20, he formed the Easy Money band where he and his friends Scott Webb and Danny Smith and few other members played at local bars as he continued to work in the oil industry. At times, he would have to leave in the middle of a gig if he was paged to work in the oil field.

In 1982, the oil industry in Oklahoma began a rapid decline and Keith soon found himself unemployed. He fell back on his football training and played defensive end with the semi-pro Oklahoma City Drillers while continuing to perform with his band. (The Drillers were an unofficial farm club of the United States Football League's Oklahoma Outlaws; Keith tried out for the Outlaws but did not make the team.) He then returned to focus once again on music. His family and friends were doubtful he would succeed, but in 1984, Easy Money began playing the honky tonk circuit in Oklahoma and Texas. The band cut a single titled Blue Moon and the song received some airplay on local radio stations in Oklahoma.

Career

In 1993, Keith went to Nashville, Tennessee. Keith hung out and busked on Music Row and at a place called Houndogs. He distributed copies of a demo tape the band had made to the many record companies in the city. There was no interest by any of the record labels and Keith returned home feeling depressed. Keith had promised himself to have a recording contract by the time he was 30 years old or give up on music as a career. He had already passed that age without any prospects for a recording contract.

Fortunately for Keith, a flight attendant and fan of his gave a copy of Keith's demo tape to Harold Shedd, a Mercury Records executive, while he was traveling on a flight she was working. Shedd enjoyed what he heard, went to see Keith perform live and then signed him to a recording contract with Mercury. His debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy" (1993), went to number 1 on the Billboard country singles chart, and his self-titled debut album was certified platinum. Other hit singles included "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action" and "Wish I Didn't Know Now".

Keith moved briefly to Polydor Records and released his next two albums, Boomtown (1994) and Blue Moon (1996). The albums went gold and platinum respectively. In 1996, Keith was also featured on the Beach Boys' now out-of-print 1996 album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 performing a cover of their 1963 hit Be True to Your School with the Beach Boys themselves providing the harmonies and backing vocals.

Polydor folded and Keith moved back to Mercury Records (now called Mercury Nashville), and released his fourth album, Dream Walkin' (1997). The album featured a duet with Sting, "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying", which had previously been a hit for Sting himself.

Toby Keith

Keith began work on his next album How Do You Like Me Now (1999) at Mercury but purchased the rights to the album and moved to DreamWorks Nashville because of creative differences with Mercury. The first single off How Do You Like Me Now failed to make the Top 40 on the country charts. However, the follow-up single, which was the album's title track, went on to spend five weeks at number one, helping boost the album's sales to double platinum.

Keith also began doing a series of television advertisements for Telecom USA for their discount long distance telephone service 10-10-220. Because of the ads and his latest hit album, Keith became a superstar and household name. He also starred in Ford commercials, singing original songs such as "Ford Truck Man" and "Field Trip (Look Again)" while driving Ford trucks.

Keith made an appearance at the very first Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (then NWA-TNA) weekly pay-per-view on June 19, 2002, where his playing of Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue was interrupted by Jeff Jarrett. He would later enter the Gauntlet for the Gold main event specifically to eliminate Jarrett from the match. He would appear the next week, on June 26, and help Scott Hall defeat Jarrett in singles action.

On November 9, 2004, Keith released a special duet with his daughter and aspiring singer, Krystal (age 19 at the time). The song, a remake of James Taylor and Carly Simon's "Mockingbird" was performed on the 2004 CMA's by the duo. The song reached top 25 on the charts.

Keith was the subject of the January, 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine's Playboy Interview. That year, Keith toured with rock guitarist Ted Nugent, whom Keith met in Iraq while they were both performing in USO-sponsored shows for the coalition troops.

On August 31, 2005, Keith parted ways with Universal Music Group- which had since bought DreamWorks- and launched his own record label called Show Dog Nashville. Its first release was Keith's album White Trash With Money, followed by the soundtrack to Broken Bridges. Big Dog Daddy, the album that birthed his single High Maintenance Woman, was released on June 12th, 2007. The album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 charts, his third album to reach this feat, after "Unleashed" and "Shock'n Y'all"

In the Autumn of 2005, he filmed Broken Bridges, written by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, and directed by Steven Goldmann. This feature film from Paramount/CMT Films was released on September 8, 2006. A contemporary story set in small-town Tennessee, Keith plays Bo Price, a country musician whose career has seen better times. The movie also stars Kelly Preston, Burt Reynolds, and Tess Harper.

In 2005, Keith opened Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and another location in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Keith had continued his Hookin' Up & Hangin' Out Tour, sponsored by Ford trucks, in Albany, New York, with guests Flynnville Train, Lindsey Haun, and Miranda Lambert, which wraped up in Hartford, Connecticut

Currently Toby Keith is doing the Bigger and Badder 2008 Tour which is still sponsored by Ford and also promotes his new movie coming out August 8 2008 called "Beer for My Horses".^[3] Keith had finished writing the script and stars in the movie which is based on his and Willie Nelson's 2003 hit Beer for My Horses

Toby Keith was given a boost when he appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Mr. Keith holds the distinction of being the only musical artist to have received a five star rating from Stephen Colbert on I-Tunes. Colbert furthered this connection when he appeared in Colbert's 2008 Christmas Special as a hunter.

On May 6, 2008, Toby Keith released his 35 Biggest Hits 2CD set.^[4] The set was certified Platinum in August of 2008.

In July 2008, Toby Keith released his new single, "She Never Cried in Front of Me". A new album, That Don't Make Me a Bad Guy, followed on October 28, 2008.

Political beliefs and controversies

Keith considers himself "a conservative Democrat who is sometimes embarrassed for his party."^[5] He endorsed the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004 and performed at a Dallas, Texas, rally on the night before the election. Keith also endorsed Democrat Dan Boren in his successful run in Oklahoma's 2nd Congressional district and is good friends with Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

In a January 2007 interview with Newsday, Keith was asked whether or not he supported the Iraq War. He responded with "Never did." He favors setting a time limit on the campaign. He also said, "I don't apologize for being patriotic... If there is something socially incorrect about being patriotic and supporting your troops, then they can kiss my ass on that, because I'm not going to budge on that at all. And that has nothing to do with politics. Politics is what's killing America."^[6]

Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue

On March 24, 2001, Keith’s father, H.K. Covel, was killed in a car accident. That event and the September 11, 2001 attacks prompted Keith to write the song "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue", a song about his father’s patriotism and faith in the United States. At first, Keith refused to record the song and sang it only live at his concerts for military personnel. The reaction was so strong that the Commandant of the Marine Corps James L. Jones told Keith it was his "duty as an American citizen" to record the song.^[7] As the lead single from the album Unleashed (2002), "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue" peaked at number one over the Fourth of July weekend.

Keith visits with fans during brief breaks in filming the music video American Soldier in hangar 1600 at Edwards Air Force Base on November 17, 2003.

ABC invited Keith to sing "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue" on a patriotic special it was producing. However, the host of the show, newsman Peter Jennings, requested that Keith soften the lyrics of the song or choose another song to sing. Keith refused both of the requests and did not appear on the special. The rift gave the song a considerable amount of publicity, which led to many national interviews and public performances of the song.

Feud with the Dixie Chicks

Keith had a public feud with the Dixie Chicks over the song "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue", as well as over comments they made about President George W. Bush on stage during a concert in London. The lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, publicly stated that Keith's song was "ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."^[8] Keith responded by belittling Maines' songwriting skills, and by displaying a backdrop at his concerts showing a doctored photo of Maines with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. On May 21, 2003, Maines wore a T-shirt with the letters "FUTK" on the front at the Academy of Country Music Awards.^[9] While a spokesperson for the Dixie Chicks said that the acronym stood for "Friends United in Truth and Kindness," many, including host Vince Gill, took it to be a shot at Keith ("Fuck You Toby Keith"). In an October 2004 appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Maines finally confessed that it was indeed a shot at Toby Keith, and that she "thought that nobody would get it."^[10]

In August 2003, Keith's representation publicly declared he was done feuding with Maines "because he's realized there are far more important things to concentrate on".^[11] However, he continues to refuse to say Maines' name, and claims that the doctored photo was intended to express his opinion that Maines' criticism was an attempt to squelch Keith's free speech.^[6]

There was an announcement in April 2008 about a proposed commercial spot to promote Al Gore's "We Campaign" involving both the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith. However, the idea was eventually abandoned due to scheduling conflicts. ^[12]

Personal life

In 1984, Keith married his wife, Tricia. He is the father of three children; Shelley (born 1980), Krystal (born 1985), and Stelen (born 1997). An avid University of Oklahoma football fan, Keith is often seen at Oklahoma Sooners games and practices.

On March 24, 2001 Keith's father was killed in a car accident on interstate 35. On 25 December 2007 the Covel family was awarded $2.8 million for the wrongful death of H.K.Covel. Elias and Pedro Rodriguez, operators of Rodriguez Transportes of Tulsa, and the Republic Western Insurance Co were found liable as they failed to properly equip the truck with properly working air brakes.

Discography

Notable awards

• Academy of Country Music (ACM) - Album of the Year (2000) How Do You Like Me Now
• Academy of Country Music - Top Male Vocalist (2000)
• Country Music Association (CMA) - Male Vocalist of the Year (2001)
• Academy of Country Music - Entertainer of the Year (2002)
• Academy of Country Music - Entertainer of the Year (2003)
• Academy of Country Music - Top Male Vocalist (2003)
• Academy of Country Music - Album of the Year (2003) Shock'n Y'all
• Academy of Country Music - Video of the Year (2003) Beer For My Horses (with Willie Nelson)
• American Music Award (AMA) - Favorite Country Male Artist (2004)
• Country Music Association - Video of the Year (2005) As Good As I Once Was
• American Music Award - 7-time consecutive nominee as of 2007

Notes

External links

• Toby Keith official website
• A Few Moments with Toby Keith on FOX News Radio