Toby Keith Covel (July 8, 1961 – February 5, 2024) was an American country music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, and businessman. He began using the stage name Toby Keith early in his music career.
Keith's debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy", topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1993. "How Do You Like Me Now?!" was the number one country song of 2000. In all, Keith has had 42 top 10 country hits and 33 No. 1s. He has released 19 studio albums, two Christmas albums, and five compilation albums, totaling worldwide sales of over 44 million albums. He was nominated for seven Grammy Awards, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Donald Trump in a closed ceremony alongside Ricky Skaggs on January 13, 2021.
In 2005, Keith founded the label Show Dog Nashville, which later became Show Dog-Universal Music. Keith also made his acting debut in 2006, starring in the film Broken Bridges. He co-starred with comedian Rodney Carrington in the 2008 film Beer for My Horses, inspired by his namesake 2003 duet with Willie Nelson.
Keith died on February 5, 2024, from stomach cancer. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2024, having been elected just hours after his death.
Toby Keith Covel was born on July 8, 1961, in Clinton, Oklahoma, to Carolyn Joan (née Ross) and Hubert K. Covel Jr. He had a sister and a brother. The family lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for a few years when Keith was in grade school but moved to Moore, Oklahoma (a suburb of Oklahoma City), when he was still young. Before the family moved to Moore, he visited his grandmother in Fort Smith during the summers. His grandmother owned Billie Garner's Supper Club in Fort Smith, where Keith became interested in the musicians who came there to play. He did odd jobs around the supper club and started getting up on the bandstand to play with the band. He got his first guitar at the age of eight.
After the family moved to Moore, Keith attended Southgate Elementary, Highland West Junior High and Moore High School, where he played defensive end on the football team.
Keith graduated from Moore High School and worked as a derrick hand in the oil fields. He worked his way up to become a supervisor. When Keith was 20, he and his friends formed the Easy Money Band, which played at local bars and roadhouses as he continued to work in the oil industry. At times, he would have to leave in the middle of a concert 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 tried out for the Oklahoma Outlaws of the USFL. When he did not make the team, he joined its unofficial semi-pro farm club, the Oklahoma City Drillers of the American Football Association, and played defensive end while continuing to perform with his band. He then returned to focus once again on music. The Easy Money Band then began playing the honky-tonk circuit in Oklahoma and Texas.
Keith went to Nashville, Tennessee, where he busked (street performing) along Music Row to no avail, until producer Harold Shedd signed him with Mercury Records after receiving a copy of Keith's demo tape from a flight attendant who was a fan of Keith's.
1993–1995: Toby Keith and Boomtown
Keith's debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy", went to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1993, and it reached number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100. His self-titled debut album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of one million copies, and produced three more Top 5 hits on the country charts with "He Ain't Worth Missing" (at No. 5), "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action" (originally the B-side of "Should've Been a Cowboy"), and "Wish I Didn't Know Now" (both at No. 2). Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote of the album, "It is given a production that's a bit too big, clean, glossy and cavernous for Keith's good—it fits the outsized sound of early-'90s radio, but not his outsized talent—but beneath that sheen the songs are very strong." He also thought that it showed the signs of the style that Keith would develop on subsequent albums. The album's success led to Keith touring with then-labelmates Shania Twain and John Brannen. Keith and Twain also appeared in Tracy Lawrence's music video for "My Second Home" in 1993.
Keith then signed with Polydor Records Nashville, with whom he released his second album, Boomtown, in September 1994. Also certified platinum, this album was led off by the number one single "Who's That Man". Follow up singles "Upstairs Downtown" and "You Ain't Much Fun" both made the Top 10, while "Big Ol' Truck" peaked at number 15. In time for the 1995 holiday season, he released his first Christmas album, Christmas to Christmas, via Mercury. Composed entirely of original songs, the album produced one chart entry in "Santa I'm Right Here", which reached as high as number 50 based on Christmas airplay.
1996–1998: Blue Moon, Dream Walkin', and Greatest Hits Volume One
Keith then signed with the short-lived Nashville division of A&M Records to release his third album Blue Moon in April 1996. That album received a platinum certification and produced three singles. Its first single, "Does That Blue Moon Ever Shine on You", which Keith wrote in 1987, peaked at number 2. Following it were "A Woman's Touch" at number 6, and "Me Too", which became his third number one hit in March 1997. Keith also appeared 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.
Following a corporate merger, Keith returned to Mercury in 1997. His fourth studio album, Dream Walkin', was also his first produced by James Stroud, who would also serve as Keith's co-producer until 2005. It produced two consecutive number 2 hits with "We Were in Love" and a cover of Sting's 1996 single "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying". Sting also sang duet vocals and played bass guitar on it, and the two also performed the song at the 1997 Country Music Association awards. After this song, the album's title track reached number 5, while "Double Wide Paradise" peaked at number 40.
Keith's last Mercury release was Greatest Hits Volume One in October 1998. The album included twelve of his prior singles and two new songs: the country rap "Getcha Some" and "If a Man Answers". Both were released as singles, with "Getcha Some" reaching the Top 20, but "If a Man Answers" became his first single to miss the Top 40. According to Keith, these two songs were originally to be put on a studio album, but Mercury executives, dissatisfied with the album that Keith had made, chose to put those two songs on a greatest hits package, and asked him to "go work on another album". After he recorded two more songs which the label also rejected, he asked to terminate his contract with the label. After exiting Mercury, Keith co-wrote Shane Minor's debut single "Slave to the Habit" with Chuck Cannon and Kostas.
1999–2002: How Do You Like Me Now?! and Pull My Chain
In 1999, Keith moved to DreamWorks Records' Nashville division, of which Stroud served as president. His first release for the label was "When Love Fades", which also failed to make Top 40. Upon seeing the single's poor performance, Keith requested that it be withdrawn and replaced with "How Do You Like Me Now?!", a song that he wrote with Chuck Cannon, and which had previously been turned down by Mercury. It also served as the title track to his first DreamWorks album, How Do You Like Me Now?! The song spent five weeks at number 1 on the country charts, and became his first top 40 pop hit, with a number 31 peak on the Hot 100. It was also the top country song of 2000 according to the Billboard Year-End chart. The album, which was certified platinum, produced a Top 5 hit in "Country Comes to Town" and another number 1 in "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This". It was also his first album to feature songs co-written by Scotty Emerick, who would be a frequent collaborator of Keith's for the next several albums. Steve Huey wrote that this album "had a rough, brash attitude that helped give Keith a stronger identity as a performer." In 2001, Keith won the Academy of Country Music's Top Male Vocalist and Album of the Year awards.