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| Birth Name(s) : Toby Keith |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
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Full Toby Keith Biography
Toby Keith Covel was born in Clinton, Oklahoma. His family moved to Moore, Oklahoma (a suburb of Oklahoma City) when Keith was young. His grandmother owned a supper club and Keith became interested in the musicians who came there to play. He got his first guitar at the age of eight. Keith attended Moore High School where he played on the football team.
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 played defensive end with the semi-pro Oklahoma City Drillers while continuing to perform with his band. (The Drillers were an unofficial farm club of the United States Football League's Oklahoma Outlaws; Keith tried out for the Outlaws but did not make the team.) After two years with the Drillers, Keith decided to try music full time. His family and friends were doubtful he would succeed, but in 1984, Easy Money began playing the honky tonk circuit in Oklahoma and Texas. The band cut a single titled Blue Moon and the song received some airplay on local radio stations in Oklahoma.
Also in 1984, Keith married his wife, Tricia. He is the father of three children; Shelley (born 1981; adopted stepdaughter), Krystal (born 1984), and Stelen (born 1997). An avid University of Oklahoma football fan, Keith is often seen at Oklahoma Sooners games and practices.
Fortunately for Keith, a flight attendant and fan of his gave a copy of Keith's demo tape to Harold Shedd, a Mercury Records executive, while he was traveling on a flight she was working. Shedd enjoyed what he heard, went to see Keith perform live and then signed him to a recording contract with Mercury. His debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy" (1993), went to number 1 on the Billboard country singles chart, and his self-titled debut album was certified platinum. Other hit singles included "A Little Less Talk And A Lot More Action" and "Wish I Didn't Know Now".
Keith moved briefly to Polydor Records and released his next two albums, Boomtown (1994) and Blue Moon (1996). The albums went gold and platinum respectively. In 1996, Keith was also featured 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.
Keith made an appearance at the very first Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (then NWA-TNA) weekly pay-per-view on June 19, 2002, where his playing of Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue was interrupted by Jeff Jarrett. He would later enter the Gauntlet for the Gold main event specifically to eliminate Jarrett from the match. He would appear the next week, on June 26, and help Scott Hall defeat Jarrett in singles action.
Keith was the subject of the January, 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine's Playboy Interview. That year, Keith toured with rock guitarist Ted Nugent, whom Keith met in Iraq while they were both performing in USO-sponsored shows for the coalition troops.
In the Autumn of 2005, he filmed Broken Bridges, written by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, and directed by Steven Goldmann. This feature film from Paramount/CMT Films was released on September 8, 2006. A contemporary story set in small-town Tennessee, Keith plays Bo Price, a country musician whose career has seen better times. The movie also stars Kelly Preston, Burt Reynolds, and Tess Harper.
Keith is continuing his Hookin' Up & Hangin' Out Tour, sponsored by Ford trucks, in Albany, New York, with guests Flynnville Train, Lindsey Haun, and Miranda Lambert, which wraps up in Hartford, Connecticut
In a January 2007 interview with Newsday, Keith was asked whether or not he supported the Iraq War. He responded with "Never did." He favors setting a time limit on the occupation. He also said, "I don't apologize for being patriotic... If there is something socially incorrect about being patriotic and supporting your troops, then they can kiss my on that, because I'm not going to budge on that at all. And that has nothing to do with politics. Politics is what's killing America."
ABC invited Keith to sing "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue" on a patriotic special it was producing. However, the host of the show, newsman Peter Jennings, requested that Keith soften the lyrics of the song or choose another song to sing. Keith refused both of the requests and did not appear on the special. The rift gave the song a considerable amount of publicity, which led to many national interviews and public performances of the song.
In the 2006 film Shut Up and Sing, Maines confirmed that the FUTK shirt was in fact a shot at Toby Keith, after once claiming that it meant Freedom Understanding Truth and Kindness. In an October 2004 appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Natalie finally acknowledged that it was indeed an obscene shot at Toby Keith, and that she didn't think her fans would get it. |
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