49 Fun Facts About Toby Keith

Toby Keith grew up in Moore but was born in which small town in western Oklahoma?

Clinton was only his birthplace: he was raised mostly in Moore, near Oklahoma City, and even at the height of his fame he kept his home in Oklahoma, outside Norman.

Toby Keith, Cyndi Lauper and the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia were all inducted in 2015 into which hall of fame?

Songwriters Hall of Fame entry suited a singer who wrote or co-wrote most of his own hits, starting with a debut No. 1 that he wrote entirely on his own.

After high school, what job did Toby Keith work while playing bars at night?

Derrick hand in the oil fields was his day job, and he worked his way up to supervisor before the oil bust of the early 1980s put him out of work.

Out of work in the early 1980s, Toby Keith tried out for the Oklahoma Outlaws of which pro football league?

USFL hopes ended when he failed to make the Outlaws, so he played semi-pro ball for their unofficial farm team, the Oklahoma City Drillers, while still fronting his band at night.

What was the name of the group Toby Keith formed with friends at age twenty to play Oklahoma roadhouses?

Easy Money worked the dance halls of Oklahoma and Texas through the 1980s, already playing Keith's own "Does That Blue Moon Ever Shine on You", which became a hit for him in 1996.

Who slipped Toby Keith's demo tape to Harold Shedd, the Mercury Records producer who then signed him?

A flight attendant who was a fan of his shows passed the tape on, after Keith himself had busked and knocked on doors along Music Row to no avail.

Which 2005 single gave Toby Keith six weeks at No. 1 on the country chart?

As Good as I Once Was plays his own aging for laughs: the narrator sits out a bar fight until pride drags him in, and in the video Keith ends the night knocked out cold.

The first verse of Toby Keith's "Should've Been a Cowboy" references which classic TV Western?

Gunsmoke was on Keith's mind in Dodge City, where the show is set: a friend there was refused a dance that a young cowboy then got, and someone joked he should have been one.

Toby Keith's "Should've Been a Cowboy" became a staple over the PA after games at which school?

Oklahoma State's teams are the Cowboys, hence the song. Keith, a die-hard fan of rival Oklahoma, once watched OSU rout his Sooners and heard it played on a loop as he left the stadium.

Which rock star sang duet vocals and played bass on Toby Keith's 1997 cover of one of his own songs?

Sting's own single had stalled near the foot of the Hot 100 a year earlier; the remake with Keith outdid it on the pop chart and became the only country hit Sting ever had.

Toby Keith sang lead on a 1996 remake of "Be True to Your School" backed by which band, its original hitmakers?

The Beach Boys made a whole album this way, Stars and Stripes Vol. 1: country singers took the lead vocals on the band's old hits while the band itself sang the harmonies behind them.

Which Toby Keith song was Billboard's No. 1 country song of the year for 2000?

How Do You Like Me Now?! sat on an album Mercury turned down; Keith bought the recordings back, took them to DreamWorks, and the song spent five weeks at No. 1.

Which patriotic Toby Keith single topped the country chart for four weeks in early 2004?

American Soldier was his thank-you to the troops he had met while playing for them overseas, and to the families who had brought him their support.

Which spoken-word Toby Keith No. 1 by Bobby Braddock was originally meant for Blake Shelton?

I Wanna Talk About Me was written for Shelton's debut album, but his label passed on it, so Braddock took the half-spoken number to Keith.

Whose gentler 9/11 song beat Toby Keith's angry anthem to the 2002 CMA Single of the Year award?

Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" came to him in the night: weeks after the attacks he woke at 4 a.m. with the song in his head, got out of bed and sang it into a recorder.

Toby Keith said he wrote "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" in how long?

20 minutes was all it took, he said: the song poured out soon after the September 11 attacks and was also his answer to losing his father, an Army veteran, earlier that year.

After Toby Keith sang his angry post-9/11 song for Pentagon brass, who told him to release it?

Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones told him a singer could serve without suiting up for combat, because troops live on morale; until then Keith had sung it only at shows for the military.

Which news anchor did Toby Keith blame for dropping him from ABC's 2002 Fourth of July special?

Peter Jennings drew a retort Keith gave the press, "Isn't he Canadian?"; ABC's own account was that the network simply didn't want to open the show with an angry song.

Toby Keith's concert backdrop showed a doctored photo of Chicks singer Natalie Maines with whom?

Saddam Hussein shared the screen with Maines after she called Keith's 9/11 anthem ignorant; she hit back at the 2003 ACM Awards in a T-shirt lettered "FUTK".

Which Toby Keith duet gave Willie Nelson, at 70, his first No. 1 country hit since 1989?

Beer for My Horses spent six weeks at No. 1 in 2003, and Keith later spun it into a feature film of the same name, co-writing the script and playing the lead himself.

Toby Keith's 2003 album title Shock'n Y'all puns on a slogan for the opening air assault of which war?

The Iraq War opened in March 2003 with a bombardment billed as "shock and awe"; Keith said the phrase was on television so constantly that giving it a little country humour made sense.

Toby Keith's restaurant chain took its name from which of his songs?

I Love This Bar spent five weeks at No. 1 in 2003, and its success led to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill, a chain that spread to cities across the country before it collapsed.

Frank Capri, who took Toby Keith's restaurant chain nationwide, turned out to be what?

An ex-mobster, he had been a soldier in New York's Lucchese crime family before turning government witness; Capri was the new name witness protection gave him, and he used it to bilk developers.

Toby Keith recorded a cover of Inez and Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird" in 2004 as a duet with whom?

His daughter Krystal, then a teenager, sang it with him at the 2004 CMA Awards and wanted to head straight for Nashville, but he insisted she finish college before making records.

Which record label did Toby Keith found in 2005 after his years with DreamWorks?

Show Dog Nashville put him in business for himself once DreamWorks was absorbed by Universal, and he went on to release his last ten studio albums on his own label.

In 2005 Toby Keith bought a stake in which fledgling record label, which went on to launch Taylor Swift?

Big Machine Records began life sharing staff with Keith's own new label, and the stake he bought in it paid out handsomely: he earned whenever Swift did.

Which business magazine put Toby Keith on its cover in 2013 as country music's $500 million man?

Forbes reckoned his career earnings had passed $500 million and that he had out-earned Jay-Z and Beyoncé that year, with a restaurant chain, a liquor brand and a record label beside the music.

Toby Keith made his film debut as a faded country singer who goes home to Tennessee in which 2006 drama?

Broken Bridges sends his character home for a brother's funeral, where he meets his high-school sweetheart again and has to face the past he walked away from; Kelly Preston and Burt Reynolds co-star.

Which comedian co-wrote and co-starred in Toby Keith's 2008 comedy film based on one of his duets?

Rodney Carrington played his fellow deputy on a rescue mission to Mexico; the song had been a No. 1 hit, but the film drew a 0% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Which 2011 single, written by two pairs of brothers rather than Toby Keith, reached No. 15 on the Hot 100?

Red Solo Cup struck Keith as the stupidest song he had ever heard, yet he was soon singing it in his head and could not get it out.

Toby Keith's "Clancy's Tavern" is a tribute to which relative, who ran a supper club in Fort Smith, Arkansas?

His grandmother ran Billie Garner's Supper Club, where he did odd jobs as a boy and sat in with the house band; by his account his grandfather nicknamed her Clancy because she kept a saloon.

Toby Keith's 2009 single "Cryin' for Me" mourned a friend who had been what?

An NBA player turned jazz bassist, Wayman Tisdale died of cancer in May 2009; Keith had two of his friend's jazz peers, bassist Marcus Miller and saxophonist Dave Koz, play on the tribute.

"Don't Let the Old Man In" grew out of a golf-course remark to Toby Keith by which actor-director?

Clint Eastwood, about to turn 88 and start another film, said he just gets up every morning and doesn't let the old man in; Keith wrote the song for that film, The Mule, and sang the demo while sick.

In 2022 Toby Keith revealed that he had been treated for cancer of which organ?

Stomach cancer was diagnosed in 2021, and he kept it to himself through chemotherapy, radiation and surgery before going public; he still made it back on stage in 2023.

Toby Keith's last concerts, in December 2023, were a sold-out run of shows in which city?

Las Vegas hosted the sold-out comeback run that proved to be his farewell: he died in Oklahoma in February 2024, less than two months after the last show, aged 62.

Toby Keith's Country Music Hall of Fame election was announced after his death, but when had voting closed?

Three days before he died the ballots were in but not yet counted: the Country Music Association learned the result only hours after his death, too late to tell him.

Which president awarded Toby Keith the National Medal of Arts?

Donald Trump handed it over in an unpublicised ceremony on January 13, 2021, the day the House impeached him for the second time; bluegrass star Ricky Skaggs was honoured alongside Keith.

Toby Keith's final recording, "Ships That Don't Come In" with Luke Combs, was made for a tribute album to whom?

Joe Diffie had died four years earlier, of COVID-19 complications; the album set new guests against vocals he taped in 2006, so Keith's last session was a duet with a singer who was already gone.

The Toby Keith Foundation's OK Kids Korral in Oklahoma City provides housing for whom?

Families of children with cancer stay free of charge while their child is treated at the hospital nearby; Keith had worked for the cause for years before he was diagnosed with cancer himself.

Which wrestler interrupted Toby Keith at the first NWA-TNA weekly pay-per-view in June 2002?

Jeff Jarrett paid for it later that night, when Keith entered the Gauntlet for the Gold and eliminated him; a week later Keith was back to help Scott Hall beat him.

Which TV host cast Toby Keith as a hunter in his 2008 Christmas special?

Stephen Colbert had first met Keith as a guest on The Colbert Report, and the two stayed friends; when the singer died, he opened The Late Show with a tribute to him.

Toby Keith starred in TV commercials for which automaker's pickup trucks?

Ford's multimillion-dollar endorsement deal was one strand of a business empire, alongside his restaurants and his own record label, that put him on a business magazine's cover as country music's $500 million man.

In "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue", Toby Keith sings that his father lost what while serving in the Army?

An eye was what the Army cost his father, the first verse says, yet he flew a flag in the yard for the rest of his life; his death in a road accident in 2001 is half of what the song is about.

Longtime Democrat Toby Keith announced in October 2008 that he was re-registering as what?

An independent, he said, because the party he had belonged to all his life no longer stood for anything he stood for; behind the flag-waving image he had long called himself a conservative Democrat.

Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney and George Strait all sang on a 2004 remake of "Hey Good Lookin'" led by whom?

Jimmy Buffett gathered five country stars for the Hank Williams standard on his album License to Chill, and the country turn gave him, more than thirty years into his career, his first No. 1 album.

From 2002, Toby Keith travelled overseas again and again with which organisation?

The USO took him to war zones, remote bases and ships at sea, where he played hundreds of shows for American troops; the bond began with the angry anthem he first wrote to sing for them.

Toby Keith's 2017 compilation The Bus Songs, home of "Wacky Tobaccy", topped which Billboard chart for 11 weeks?

Comedy Albums suited a set of adult-humour songs born in late-night sessions on his tour bus and never meant for country radio; on the main country albums chart it stalled at No. 6.

Which 2011 single was the last of Toby Keith's No. 1 country hits?

Made in America nearly missed the album: Keith felt he had cut enough patriotic songs, and gave in only when everyone in the studio told him it was a smash.

The 6-foot-4 Toby Keith played which position for Moore High School's football team?

Defensive end was his spot at Moore High and later with the semi-pro Oklahoma City Drillers; he never played college football, though he once tried out for a professional team.