Timeline: A look at Toby Keith's storied life from Oklahoma oil fields to climbing charts
The country music world is mourning the death of Oklahoma icon Toby Keith, who passed away Feb. 5 after a multiyear battle with stomach cancer. He was 62.
The singer led a busy life in his musical career, but also in philanthropy and business. His achievements include 42 Top 10 hits, including 32 chart-toppers, 21 studio albums, inductions into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and receiving the National Medal of Arts.
Here's a look at some of the top moments in Toby Keith's life:
Early years: Toby Keith a native son to Moore, Oklahoma
Toby Keith Covel was born on July 8, 1961, in Clinton, Oklahoma, to Carolyn Joan and Hubert K. Covel Jr., according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. He has an older sister and a younger brother.
The family lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for a few years but moved to Moore when Keith was still young. He attended Highland West Junior High and Moore High School.
After graduation, Keith worked in the oil fields while he and a few of his friends formed the Easy Money Band.
As the oil market dissolved, he began playing semiprofessional football for the Oklahoma City Drillers, but by the mid-1980s focused on music. His Easy Money Band traveled a circuit of honky-tonk bars throughout Oklahoma and Texas.
On March 24, 1984, Keith married Tricia Lucus and adopted her child, Shelley Reeve. He later had two children with Tricia: Krystal (born in 1985), and Stelen (born in 1997).
1990s: Toby Keith's music career began in Nashville, signs to Mercury Records
In the 1990s, Toby Keith traveled to Nashville, where he busked and distributed copies of a demo tape. A copy made its way to Harold Shedd, a Mercury Records executive, who went to see Keith perform live and then signed him to a recording contract with Mercury.
In 1993, his self-titled debut album produced the Number One country song, "Should've Been a Cowboy." The album's success led to Keith touring with then-labelmates Shania Twain and John Brannen.
Under Mercury Records, Polydor Records, and A&M Records, he had a modestly successful 1990s career, the Oklahoma Historical Society reports, but it skyrocketed after he changed to the Dreamworks Records label in 1999.
2000s: Keith climbs charts, founds Show Dog Records
Keith released the song and album "How Do You Like Me Now?!" in 1999. 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.
In 2001, Keith won the Academy of Country Music's Top Male Vocalist and Album of the Year awards.
On March 24, 2001, Keith's father was killed in a car accident involving a charter bus on Interstate 35. On December 25, 2007, the Covel family was awarded $2.8 million for his wrongful death. Rodriguez Transportes of Tulsa and the Republic Western Insurance Co. were found liable as they failed to equip the charter bus with properly working air brakes.
In 2002, Keith released the "Unleashed" album, which included "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)", which Keith wrote in 20 minutes as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The song references Keith's father, a United States Army veteran who died that March.
Keith had a public feud with the Dixie Chicks over the song "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue," in 2002, as well as over comments they made about President George W. Bush on stage during a concert in London in March 2003.
He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
On August 31, 2005, Keith founded a new label, Show Dog Nashville. The label signed Keith's daughter, Krystal Keith, in 2013. She wrote her debut single "Daddy Dance with Me," as a surprise to her father and performed it for the first time on the day of her wedding.
In 2005, Keith opened his first Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in Oklahoma City, and at one time, restaurants in his name were in business across the nation. A licensing venture, Keith is not directly involved in the restaurants. Early issues with licensing through an Arizona company called Boomtown Entertainment that led to the shuttering of several restaurants across the country has led Keith's team to be more selective in whom they partner with for licensing.
Three locaions of Toby Keith's I Love This Bar — operated by Hal Smith Restaurants — still operate in Oklahoma: the original in OKC's Bricktown district, one in his hometown of Moore and one in the Chickasaw Nation's WinStar World Casino in Thackerville.
Later years: Keith's diagnosis
Between 2010 and 2023, Keith released 10 albums.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, ushered into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2021 and received the National Medal of Arts in 2021. He was named a BMI Icon in 2022 and last year received the inaugural Country Icon award, presented by fellow Oklahoman Blake Shelton, during the People’s Choice Country Awards on NBC.
Exclusive: Toby Keith continuing cancer fight but feeling better and eager to tour again
In June 2022, Keith revealed that he had been battling stomach cancer since fall 2021 and had already spent the past six months undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.
In October 2023, Keith gave a surprise performance of his seminal hit "Should've Been a Cowboy" during fellow country music star Jason Aldean's sold-out show at Oklahoma City's Paycom Center.
In November 2023, he released his final album, "100% Songwriter," which featured his most iconic solo-written songs.
Keith's last performance was Dec. 14, 2023, which was part of a three-show run at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas.
Contributing: The Oklahoman's Brandy McDonnell and JaNae Williams.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Toby Keith dies: A look at decades of music, philanthropy
