Toby Keith was guy I didn't expect to die early, when he was at his height of prominence in the early 2000s.
He became known exactly when I started to become a fan of country music -- 1993. He had big hits with "Should've Been a Cowboy", "He Ain't Worth Missing'", and "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action".
He had a number of other hits in the 1990s, but he came into the most prominence in the early 2000s, thanks to a controversial song and a battle with the Dixie Chicks.
In March 2001, Keith's father died, and he thought that he'd like to write a song honoring him at some point soon. Six months later, the 9/11 attacks occurred, and Toby was inspired to write a song covering both subjects. While memorializing his patriotic late father, Toby wrote what was essentially a fight song for the US, promising retribution against al Qaeda for the attacks. While al Qaeda and 9/11 are not specifically mentioned, the message was very clear. The attack was referenced as "a mighty sucker punch flying in, from somewhere in the back", and promised a response where "it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you.... brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue!"
Unlike a lot of other bland country songs quickly released to reference the 9/11 attacks, this was actually a good song, and very catchy. In fact, I played it to open PFA Radio the night Trump was elected in 2016, as a middle finger to the libs who had been shrieking the entire year about the collapse of America if he were to win.
This song was released in May 2002, and was a huge hit. Toby was invited to appear on ABC to sing it on a patriotic special airing soon after.
The song shouldn't have been controversial, as it was patriotic but contained no racist, Islamophobic, or xenophobic elements to it. It was very straightforward -- promising retribution to the terrorists who attacked America on its homeland.
However, insufferable Canadian lib Peter Jennings was somehow offended by it, and demanded Toby Keith "soften the lyrics" if he wanted to appear on the ABC special. Keith told him to fuck off, and didn't appear on the special.
In August 2002, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, another insufferable lefty who originally rose to prominence in country while hiding her true political views, picked a fight with Toby about the song for no good reason. She stated, "I hate it. It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture - and not just the bad people who did bad things. You've got to have some tact. Anybody can write, 'We'll put a boot in your ass.' But a lot of people agree with it."
This was an unfair criticism, as the song never "targeted an entire culture", and in fact never mentioned Islam at all.
This already irritated country fans, but Maines put the final nail in her career's coffin six months later, when she criticized George W. Bush and the Iraq War while performing on foreign soil, and claimed to be ashamed to be from Texas.
In May 2003, with her career spiraling, Maines appeared at the Country Music Awards wearing a shirt reading "FUTK". She refused to admit that it meant "Fuck You Toby Keith", instead claiming it meant "Friends United for Truth and Kindness". Three years later, she admitted it really meant FU Toby Keith.
By this point, Keith had stopped feuding with her, and basically let her tilt her face off into oblivion, which is exactly what she did.
He followed up his "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" success with hits such as "Who's Your Daddy" (about an older man romancing a college girl while her fellow students are 'home for the summertime') and "Beer For My Horses", a duet with Willie Nelson about Old West vigilante justice.
Both had entertaining videos which had little to do with the song. "Who's Your Daddy" featured a hot chick breaking into Toby's house while he was away, acting like she lived there, only to have it revealed that his gardener pretended it was his house and had invited her over. "Beer for My Horses" featured Keith, Nelson, and Corin Nemec (formerly "Parker Lewis" from the early '90s TV show), and involved a slapstick hunt for a serial killer.
Keith's album in 2010 failed to produce any real hits, and that was the end of his prominence in the country music space. By that point, Toby was in his late 40s, and country music had been changing to favor younger stars who would sing about partying and chasing girls. Keith's music, which was more of a '90s style, simply didn't fit anymore.
For that reason, I had lost track of Keith, and hadn't seen a picture of him in awhile. My last look at him was that of a tall, strong looking guy in his late 40s, who was the opposite of sickly. However, the more recent pictures of Toby Keith looked like a different person. His body had been ravaged by stomach cancer, which was diagnosed at the end of 2021, at age 60. He passed away yesterday.
There are some unfair and incorrect beliefs about Toby Keith. Some on Twitter today were suggesting he "threatened to kill" the Dixie Chicks, which never happened. All of the aggression in that feud was on Natalie Maines' side, and she was factually wrong. Others are still incorrectly casting his "Red White and Blue" song to be racist, which it wasn't at all. Even others believed he was a right wing fanatic, when in reality he was a centrist. As late as 2008, Toby Keith was still identifying as a Democrat, and in fact said Barack Obama was a good candidate. He spoke out against the 2003 Iraq War, saying that "some things didn't add up". It was only after 2008 when Keith officially left the Democratic Party, claiming it had changed and "didn't stand for anything anymore". He never registered as a Republican. He did perform at Trump's inauguration, but thanked Barack Obama for his service during that performance.
Toby Keith was a class guy, and I was sorry to hear about his cancer and his death. Unlike many other celebrities who died young (he was 62), his passing was simply a result of bad luck.
RIP
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Originally Posted by The Boz
