Toby Keith, a hit country crafter of pro-American anthems who riled up critics and was loved by millions of fans, has died. He was 62.
The "Should've Been a Cowboy" singer-songwriter, who had stomach cancer, died Monday surrounded by his family, according to a statement posted on the country singer's website.
"He fought his fight with grace and courage," the statement said. He announced his cancer diagnosis in 2022.
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.
He was known for his overt patriotism on post 9/11 songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," and boisterous barroom tunes like "I Love This Bar" and "Red Solo Cup." He had a powerful booming voice, a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and range that carried love songs as well as drinking songs.
Among his 20 No. 1 Billboard hits were "How Do You Like Me Now?!," "As Good As I Once Was," "My List" and "Beer for My Horses," a duet with Willie Nelson. He tallied more than 60 singles on the Hot Country chart over his career.
Throughout the cancer treatments, Keith continued to perform, most recently playing in Las Vegas in December.
Keith worked as a roughneck in the oil fields of Oklahoma as a young man, then spent a couple seasons as a defensive end for the Oklahoma City Drillers, a farm team for the now-defunct United States Football League. But he found consistent money playing music with his band throughout the red dirt roadhouse circuit in Oklahoma and Texas.
"All through this whole thing the only constant thing we had was music," he said. "But it's hard to sit back and say, 'I'm going to go make my fortune singing music, or writing music.' I had no contacts."
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 group Alabama. Shedd brought him to Mercury, where he released his platinum debut record "Toby Keith," in 1993.
"Should've Been a Cowboy," his breakout hit, was played 3 million times on radio stations, making it the most played country song of the 1990s.
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's when his multiweek hit "How Do You Like Me Now?!" took off and became his first song to cross over to Top 40 charts. In 2001, he won the male vocalist of the year and album of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards.
After Universal Music Group acquired DreamWorks, Keith started anew again, starting his own record label, Show Dog, in 2005 with record executive Scott Borchetta, who launched his own label Big Machine at the same time.
Later the label became Show Dog-Universal Music and had Keith, Trace Adkins, Joe Nichols, Josh Thompson, Clay Walker and Phil Vassar on its roster.
His later hits included "Love Me If You Can," "She Never Cried In Front of Me," and "Red Solo Cup." He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.
He was honored by the performance rights organization BMI in November 2022 with the BMI Icon award, a few months after announcing his stomach cancer diagnosis.
Toby Keith performs at the iHeartCountry Festival on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021, at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)