By Emily McLaughlin
On Feb. 5, American country songwriter Toby Keith dies at 62. Kieth was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2022. He underwent multiple rounds of surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy before his passing.
Keith was vocal about his battle with cancer, speaking to The New York Times about the rollercoaster of events that cancer had put on his life in Sept. 2024.
“Cancer is a roller coaster. You just sit here and wait on it to go away — it may not ever go away,” Keith said.
Keith continued to play over three nights in Las Vegas in December despite visibly looking thinner. He continued to perform some of his hit songs.
Keith performed his 32 number-one hits with the addition of his 42 top 10 hits that led him to skyrocket on the country charts.
Keither was born in 1961 in Clinton, Oklahoma, where he worked in the oil field as a young man. Later, the oil field collapsed, leading Keith to become part of the defensive end for the Oklahoma City Drillers. But with these different careers, Keith and his band found playing consistent music was the only way to make money during the red dirt roadhouse circuit in Texas and Oklahoma.
AP News said, “All through this whole thing, the only constant thing we had was music, but it’s hard to sit back and say, ‘I’m going to go make my fortune singing music, or writing music.’”
In 1993, Keith and his band moved to Nashville, Tennesse, where they met Mercury Records Harold Shedd, an American music industry executive and record producer. Bringing Keith to Mercury Records, Shedd released his platinum debut “Toby Keith.”
Keith’s first debut single, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy,” played three million times on radio stations and became the most-played country song of the 1990s.
“Keith was big, brash, and never bowed down or slowed down for anyone… He relished being an outsider and doing things his way.” BBC News said.
In the aftermath of 9/11, Keith’s Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American) became a famous symbol for the rage the US was going through.
Keith often would be associated with relating to politics in the songs he wrote. Given the opportunity from Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, Keith became involved with the military charity United Service Organisations (USO).
Keith became a popular figure in the military community, performing in seventeen countries worldwide and with popular songs like American Solider (2003) and Made in America (2011).
Explaining how he was not a political person, Keith said he was a Democrat in the past and then switched to an Independent in 2008. Keith performed for Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump.
In 2018, Keith said to Azcentral, “You can’t go out and support the military in Afghanistan, or you get all the right-wing checkmarks that come with it. I was like, “Well, I’m just gonna take ‘em. Mark me down. Just check me off however you want to check me off.”
Keith’s song Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue and many others honoring the military and what they fight for opened up a new world of prejudiced music that goes against the stereotype of how music should be.
Kieth was 62 at his passing.