Toby Keith Had More to Talk About Than His Politics

In the spring of 1993, Mercury Records put three of its new country signees on a bus and sent them on a 15-city tour intended to raise their profile. It was a hell of an assemblage. There was the troubadour John Brannen, who possessed a rootsy sound and a quaver that channeled Roy Orbison’s. He alternated opening and closing slots with a former Oklahoma oil-field worker and semi-pro defensive end named Toby Keith. Playing in between was a brassy Canadian from a hardscrabble background: Shania Twain. It was Twain, in fact, who ran screaming to the front of the bus to tell Keith—who died Monday at 62—that his debut single, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” was playing on the radio.

“Should’ve Been a Cowboy” would top the Hot Country Singles chart , establishing Keith