Toby Keith

Toby Keith Covel is an American country music singer-songwriter born in 1961. His fame was assured with the release of the patriotic "boot in the ass" song -- "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" (2001) -- whose inflammatory lyrics sparked a media scrum. However, he had been recording songs for almost a decade prior to this episode.

Toby Keith initially earned his living in the Oklahoma oil fields, playing in the Easy Money Band in his spare time. When the oil industry suffered a downturn he turned to football for a while, but after two years he decided to make music his focus. By 1993 he had released his major label debut Toby Keith and struck success immediately with the hit singles "Should've Been a Cowboy", "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action" and "He Ain't Worth Missing". Virtually all of his subsequent albums continued the platinum selling streak, with his latter albums from 2001 onwards hitting the Top 10 in both the country music and main Billboard charts.

His most recent albums have been Big Dog Daddy and the Yuletide flavoured A Classic Christmas, both released in 2007.