The king of country Toby Keith has passed away. He was called “Country Music’s $500 Million Man.”
THE Toby Keith, singer and songwriter with #1 hits like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Made in America” died Monday night in age 62 years.
He was one of her biggest stars country music that “emerged” from Nashville in the last three decades in America. The media called him: “Country music’s $500 million man.”
His death announced on its official websitewhich said he died “peacefully” surrounded by his family.
THE Keith had disclosed that he was suffering from stomach cancer in June 2022 and last September he spoke about his experience, accepting the award Country Icon στα People’s Choice Country Awards.
He released his first four studio albums: Toby Keith (1993), Boomtown (1994), Blue Moon (1996) and Dream Walkin’ (1997), as well as a Greatest Hits compilation before leaving Mercury in 1998.
His debut “Should’ve Been a Cowboy“, topped the country charts and was the most played country song of the 1990s.
Toby Keith / 2019 στο Nashville
AP Photo/Sanford Myers
Who was Toby Keith?
He was born in Oklahoma and his grandmother owned the famous nightclub “Billie Garner’s Supper Club” in Fort Smith, where Keith became interested from an early age in the musicians who came to perform live.
He worked various jobs at the club until he slowly began to get on stage to play with the bands. He got his first guitar at the age of eight.
He later attended Highland West Junior High and Moore High School, where he played on the team football. He worked hard as oil field worker and when he was 20, together with his friends Scott Webb, Keith Cory, David “Yogi” Vowell and Danny Smith, they created the Easy Money Band.
They played music in local bars while he he continued to work in the oil industry. At times, he had to leave suddenly in the middle of a concert if he was called to work in the mining field.
In 1982, the oil industry in Oklahoma experienced a rapid decline and Keith soon found himself unemployed. He returned to his football culture and played with the Oklahoma City Drillers, while also continuing to play music.
Toby Keith
AP Photo/Gary Malerba
In 1984, and while his family and friends had doubts that he would make it, he began to devote himself exclusively to music, booking live shows in Oklahoma and Texas.
In the early 1990s, Keith went to Nashville, Tennesseewhere he frequented and played in a shop called Houndogs. He had he promised himself to have a record deal by the age of 30 or he would give up music as a career forever.
He handed out copies of a demo tape but there was no interest from any record label and Keith returned home feeling depression.
One of the richest singers in America
There… in the phase of frustration, one air hostess and his fan during a flight, gave one copy of Keith’s demo tape to Harold Shedd, one Mercury Records executive. Shedd liked what he heard, went to see Keith play live and then signed a recording contract with Mercury. That’s how it all started!
Keith’s music career and various other business ventures put him in their club wealthiest celebrities in the United States. In the July 15, 2013 edition of Forbes magazine, Keith is on the cover with the caption “Country Music’s $500 Million Man.”
His last appearance and Clint Eastwood
Toby wrote the “Don’t Let the Old Man In” in 2018 as a birthday present for him Clint Eastwoodwho was set to begin shooting his next film, “The Mule,” on his 88th birthday.
The verse “don’t let the old man in” (means don’t let yourself grow old) liked Clint so much that he included the song in the film.
Toby Keith performed the song at People’s Choice Country Awards last September and hearing it in light of his illness the whole room applauded with emotion.
Keith – who wrote most of his own songs – struggled to make it. “When Should Have Been a Cowboy became a #1 country single in 1993 I was doing 28, 29 shows a month because I didn’t know if I was going to get a second chance” he had said. “I was just trying to work harder than others“.