Toby Keith

About Toby Keith

Hunky country music star Toby Keith has carved out a Nashville niche for himself with his blue-collar swagger and eloquent slice-of-life ballads. Keith was born in Oklahoma and became interested in music after getting exposed to a wide variety of artists playing his grandmother's supper club. Growing up, Keith's two passions were football and music and he got his first guitar at age 8. Like a character out of one of his songs, Toby graduated high school and went to work in an oil field. At 20, he joined a band called Easy Money and began gigging at local bars, often having to leave mid-show when he was needed at work. However, in 1982 the Oklahoma oil industry took a nose dive and Toby was out of work. He initially pursued a career in football with the local farm team The Drillers, but eventually decided music was for him and Easy Money cut a single, "Blue Moon," that earned them local airplay. In 1993, Toby Keith moved to Nashville and busked around local industry hangouts. Finally, a devoted fan who was also a flight attendant passed his demo on to a Mercury Records exec mid-flight and Keith finally got his big break. It was fate and Toby Keith's debut single "Should've Been A Cowboy" quickly shot to #1 on the country charts. There's been no looking back, and since then Toby Keith has gone on to have dozens of hits including "Who's That Man?" "A Little Less Talk and A Lot More Action," "Who's Your Daddy" and the Willie Nelson duet "Beer For My Horse."