Toby Keith - Biography

Last Editor: susannoelmeyer				Toby Keith Biography -   Name : Toby Keith Date of birth : 8 July 1961 Place of birth : Clinton, Oklahoma, USA Birth name : Toby Keith Covel Height : 6' 4

Toby Keith Trivia -

Started his own band, "the Easy Money Band", and played in honky tonks all across America before making it big. His first single, "I Should Have Been a Cowboy" was named by Billboard Magazine, the most played Country song of the 1990s. Has a daughter, Krystal. She sang with him on the CMA Awards 2004. Before singing country music, was a semi-pro footballer player. He played tight end. His #1 single "As Good As I Once Was" is his second-fastest rising #1 since "The Angry American", and the fastest since Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying". His latest album, "Honky Tonk University" has been certified platinum in just a few weeks. Celebrated his 21st #1 Country single with "As Good As I Once Was", his 10th #1 in only 5 years, with a total of 38 weeks combined at the top of the Country Charts with his hits.

Toby Keith Detailed Biography -

Toby Keith Covel (born July 8, 1961) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Toby Keith 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 8. Keith attended Moore High School where he played on the football team. Keith graduated from Moore High School and, in 1979, went to work as a derrick hand in the booming oil fields of Oklahoma. He worked his way up to become an operation manager. At the age of 20, he formed the Easy Money band and they played local bars as he continued to work in the oil industry. At times, he would have to leave in the middle of a gig if he was paged to work in the oil field. 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 USFL'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. In 1993, Keith went to Nashville, Tennessee. He distributed copies of a demo tape the band had made to the many record companies in the city. There was no interest by any of the record labels and Keith returned home feeling depressed. Keith had promised himself to have a recording contract by the time he was 30 years old or give up on music as a career. He had already passed that age without any prospects for a recording contract. Fortunately for Keith, a fan of his, who was a flight attendant, 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 liked 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 Then." 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. Polydor folded and Keith moved back to Mercury Records, now called Mercury Nashville, and released his fourth album, Dream Walkin' (1997). Sting (Gordon Sumner) is featured on Dream Walkin' as additional vocals on a cover of Sting's song "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying." Keith began work on his next album How Do You Like Me Now (1999) at Mercury but purchased the rights to the album and moved to Dreamworks Nashville because of creative differences with Mercury. The title song "How Do You Like Me Now" was a number 1 single for 5 weeks and the album went double platinum. Keith also began doing a series of television advertisements for Telecom USA for their discount long distance telephone service 10-10-220. Because of the ads and his latest hit album, Keith became a superstar and household name. Keith was the subject of the January 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine's Playboy Interview. In 2005, 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.