Country singer Toby Keith dead at age 62
Country music legend Toby Keith has died at 62 after a battle with stomach cancer.
The “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” singer died Monday night, according to an official statement shared on social media.
“Toby Keith passed peacefully last night on February 5th, surrounded by his family,” the post reads. “He fought his fight with grace and courage. Please respect the privacy of his family at this time.”
Just two weeks ago, the “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” hitmaker opened up about his cancer battle, revealing he was diagnosed in 2021.
“I was going through all the chemo, radiation, surgery, and I got to the point where I was comfortable with whatever happened. I had my brain wrapped around it, and I was in a good spot either way,” he told Oklahoma’s News 9.
The crooner praised his wife, Tricia Lucus, for being “the best nurse” as he underwent treatment.
“Oh, she’s been a trouper. She’s the best nurse. The first time we went to Houston, to the hospital, she stepped right in and she just took control and said, ‘We got this. Let’s go.’ So she’s like, ‘We’re going to get this and don’t worry about it,'” he told his hometown outlet.
This past June, Keith told the Oklahoman that he had spent more than six months undergoing chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.
The multiplatinum-certified singer first spoke about his cancer battle publicly in 2022.
“So far, so good,” he said in the summer. “I need time to breathe, recover and relax. I am looking forward to spending this time with my family. But I will see the fans sooner than later. I can’t wait.”
During his glittering career, which spanned three decades, Keith sold over 40 million records thanks to patriotic hits like “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” “Made in America” and “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”
Follow along with The Post's coverage of Toby Keith's death
- Country superstar Toby Keith died Monday at age 62 after a battle with stomach cancer.
- Keith kept performing until just two months ago when he performed three sold-out concerts in Las Vegas in December. Announced as his “triumphant return to the stage,” the trio of shows would ultimately be his last.
- In September, he said that his illness was “a little bit of a roller coaster.”
- Keith was instrumental in getting a young Taylor Swift signed to Big Machine Records, the sister label of Keith’s Show Dog Nashville. She also spoke about the importance of their partnership early in her career. “You’re in the room with him and you can feel it,” Swift said of her mentor.
He released his debut album in 1993 and is known for hits including “Red Solo Cup” and “I Wanna Talk About Me.”
Keith went on to release albums “Blue Moon” in 1996, “Pull My Chain” in 2001 and “Unleashed” in 2002.
His other hits include “Who’s Your Daddy” and “As Good as I Once Was.”
Prior to launching his music career in the ’90s, the Oklahoma native worked in oil fields before becoming a semi-pro football player.
Most recently, Keith performed at the People’s Choice Country Awards in September, where he received the Country Icon Award.
In 2006, Keith set up a foundation to help children battling cancer.
In a 2011 interview with the New York Times, Keith said the title track on his 2011 album “Clancy’s Tavern” refers to a supper club that his grandmother ran in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
“She’s my hero,” Keith said.
He described how his grandmother ignited his interest in music when she put him to work in the kitchen.
“I would bottle up long necks and stick them in the boxes and wait for the beer truck to come to pick them up. I’d do dishes and sit every night and watch that band play. And she bought me a guitar on my birthday,” he recalled. “I’d get onstage with them occasionally and plunk around with them, but mostly I’d stay in the kitchen. In this song, the characters are real, the names are real, the whole experience is real, and it was very influential in me ending up doing what I do today.”
He was already in his 30s by the time he signed his first record deal.
In another January interview, Keith recalled considering giving up his dream when he was in his late 20s and had two kids and no lucrative music career.
“It even got to the point where I was like, ‘If I get to 30 and I haven’t done this, I am going to switch occupations,’” he said.
Mere days away from his 30th birthday, he was approached by Mercury Music.
Those early struggles informed his work ethic, he said.
“I didn’t take many vacations the first 20 years of my adult life,” he said in a 2018 episode of “The Big Interview With Dan Rather.”
“When I came out and my song hit,” he said, referring to “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” “I was doing 28, 29 shows a month because I didn’t know I was going to get a second hit.”
In an interview with the Oklahoman in 2018, Keith recalled how he was on a hunting trip with a group of friends when he was inspired to write his breakout hit.
“A guy said to another guy, ‘In all honesty, you should’ve been a cowboy’ when a girl didn’t dance with him in his hunting clothes. And I thought, ‘Man, that sounds like a song idea,’ and it was all over me,” he said.
While his roommate was asleep during that trip, he said he wrote the song in 20 minutes.
“I didn’t want to wake him ‘cause he was hateful when you’d wake him up,” Keith said. “I went in the bathroom, shut the door, wrote it down and put it in my bag and went hunting the next day. Came home, revisited it and said, ‘I’m gonna record this song.’ It’s the foundation for me of everything.”
And at all of his shows, he said, “I’ve never not played that song — no matter what.”
He further told the Times during that 2011 interview that writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking his eyes.
“It’s an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought. If I hear a conversation and somebody says something intriguing my first thought is, ‘Is that a song?’ I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these 40 or 50 things out and say, ‘Which of these things do I want to record?'” he said. “So when the album comes out, it’s kind of the cream of the crop of what I did last year, so there’s really no theme or direction. If you listen to my first and second album that I did when I was 30, you will hear some stuff I hear today. I don’t hear the difference.”
The music legend is survived by his wife and their three children, Shelley, Krystal and Stelen. He also leaves behind four grandchildren.
