In 1984, he turned to music full time, playing the honky-tonk circuit in Oklahoma and Texas with the band Easy Money. A demo tape made the rounds in Nashville , but there were no takers. After catching a show in Oklahoma , Mercury Records President Harold Shedd signed him to Mercury Records. His 1993 debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy," went to No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart, and his self-titled debut album was certified platinum.
In 1993, Keith went to Nashville , Tennessee . Keith hung out and busked on Music Row and at a place called Houndogs. 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 flight attendant and fan of his 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 enjoyed 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 Now".
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. In 1996, Keith was also featured on the Beach Boys' now out-of-print 1996 album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 performing a cover of their 1963 hit Be True to Your School with the Beach Boys themselves providing the harmonies and backing vocals.
Polydor folded and Keith moved back to Mercury Records (now called Mercury Nashville), and released his fourth album, Dream Walkin' (1997). The album featured a duet with Sting, "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying", which had previously been a hit for Sting himself.
Toby KeithKeith 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.[citation needed] The first single off How Do You Like Me Now failed to make the Top 40 on the country charts. However, the follow-up single, which was the album's title track, went on to spend five weeks at number one, helping boost the album's sales to 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. He also starred in Ford commercials, singing original songs such as "Ford Truck Man" and "Field Trip (Look Again)" while driving Ford trucks.
Keith made an appearance at the very first Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (then NWA-TNA) weekly pay-per-view on June 19, 2002, where his playing of Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue was interrupted by Jeff Jarrett. He would later enter the Gauntlet for the Gold main event specifically to eliminate Jarrett from the match. He would appear the next week, on June 26, and help Scott Hall defeat Jarrett in singles action.
Keith was the subject of the January, 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine's Playboy Interview. That year, 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.
On August 31, 2005, Keith parted ways with Universal Music Group- which had since bought DreamWorks- and launched his own record label called Show Dog Nashville. Its first release was Keith's album White Trash With Money, followed by the soundtrack to Broken Bridges. Big Dog Daddy, the album that birthed his single High Maintenance Woman, was released on June 12th, 2007. The album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 charts, his third album to reach this feat, after "Unleashed" and "Shock'n Y'all"
In the Autumn of 2005, he filmed Broken Bridges, written by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, and directed by Steven Goldmann. This feature film from Paramount/CMT Films was released on September 8, 2006. A contemporary story set in small-town Tennessee , Keith plays Bo Price, a country musician whose career has seen better times. The movie also stars Kelly Preston, Burt Reynolds, and Tess Harper.
In 2005, Keith opened Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in Bricktown , Oklahoma City, Oklahoma .
Keith is continuing his Hookin' Up & Hangin' Out Tour, sponsored by Ford trucks, in Albany , New York , with guests Flynnville Train, Lindsey Haun, and Miranda Lambert, which wraps up in Hartford , Connecticut
Keith is currently writing a script for a movie based on his and Willie Nelson's 2003 hit Beer for My Horses.
Toby Keith was given a boost when he appeared on Comedy Centrals The Colbert Report. Mr. Keith holds the distinction of being the only musical artist to have received a five star rating from Steven Colbert on I-Tunes.
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Toby Keith Biography:
