Country singer-songwriter Toby Keith dies at 62 after battling stomach cancer

FILE – Toby Keith arrives at the People’s Choice Country Awards on Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, at The Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. “Beer For My Horses” singer-songwriter Toby Keith has died. He was 62. Keith passed peacefully on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024 surrounded by his family, according to a statement posted on the country singer’s website.

The 6-foot-4 singer broke out in the country boom years of the 1990s, writing songs that fans loved to hear. Over his career he publicly clashed with other celebrities and journalists and often pushed back against record executives who wanted to smooth his rough edges. “Cancer is a roller coaster,” he told KWTV during an interview aired last month. “You just sit here and wait on it to go away. It might never go away.”

“The money to be made was unbelievable,” Keith told the AP in 1996. “I came out of high school in 1980 and they gave me this job December of 1979, $50,000 a year. I was 18 years old.” Eventually his path took him to Nashville, where he attracted the interest of Mercury Records head Harold Shedd, who was best known as a producer for the hit group Alabama. Shedd brought him to Mercury, where he released his platinum debut record “Toby Keith,” in 1993.

After a series of albums that produced hits like “Who’s That Man,” and a cover of Sting’s “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying,” Keith moved to DreamWorks Records in 1999. That song got pulled from a patriotic ABC Fourth of July special after producers deemed it too angry for the show. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle called Keith’s song “pandering to people’s worst instincts at a time they are hurt and scared.”

Keith, who had acknowledged that he holds onto grudges, walked out of the ACM Awards in 2003 early because he had gotten snubbed in earlier categories, causing him to miss out when he was announced as entertainer of the year. Vince Gill accepted on his behalf. He came back the next year and won the top prize for a second year in a row, along with top male vocalist and album of the year for “Shock ’n Y’all.

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