We lost a country music legend last night. Toby Keith passed away at the age of 62 last night and I wanted to honor him with this post. Since the turn of the century, I have to be honest, there aren’t many mainstream country artists that I enjoy listening to, but Toby Keith was a good one. He is probably most known for his patriotic stances during a time when the country needed it the most, but putting that aside, he had one of the best voices in country music.

I remember his music as far back as I have memory. I wouldn’t say that I am the biggest Toby Keith fan, but his music was always around in some capacity and I always enjoyed it. So, today, while we remember him, I want to point out a couple things that you may or may not have known about him. For starters, I don’t think a lot of people know that if it were not for him, there may not be a Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift signed her first record deal with Big Machine Records, which Toby Keith was a co-founder of. Swift recorded 6 albums with Big Machine before switching to Republic in 2018.

Wrestling fans know this already, but some of you may not know that Toby Keith, himself, was a massive wrestling fan as well. He made a couple appearances on TNA Impact! in 2002 when the show was getting its start. He performed “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” on the debut show. it was also rumored that Toby Keith was set to buy the struggling wrestling promotion back in 2013 along with Jeff Jarrett, but the sale wasn’t agreed upon. He was also very good friends with legendary wrestling commentator, Jim Ross. Both of them were and are Oklahoma football superfans.

While his music was most popular in the 90s and 2000s, one memory I will always have of him is during the beginning of the pandemic. The story is that he was in Mexico when the pandemic began and he couldn’t travel back to the US. He didn’t bring his guitar with him to Mexico, so he bought one at a random furniture store and made some YouTube videos playing on his furniture store guitar. He called it the Furniture Store Guitar Sessions with Toby. He played mostly covers different songs, but he threw in some of his own as well. I always thought that this series was really cool.

He also filled in for Merle Haggard in one of the Hag’s final concerts back in 2016 in Las Vegas. Merle had been in a very rough condition and Toby Keith stepped up and helped him out. Haggard passed away just 2 months after this. Haggard asked Keith how many songs of his he knew. Keith replied “…all of them.” Haggard performed 8 songs on stage that night, but Keith finished the rest of them.

Keith was also very involved in charity, including his own foundation that he created to raise money for pediatric cancer patients and families of those patients. The Toby Keith Foundation and the OK Kids Korral are still in operation and has been since 2006 and do great things for families of children with cancer. Keith himself had been battling stomach cancer since 2022 and many thought he was getting better. Sadly, that didn’t appear to be the case. RIP to a Country Music Legend. RIP to the Big Dog Daddy, Toby Keith.

Yacs

RIP Toby Keith