From The Heart Toby Keith Doesn’t Have A Certain Sound; He Just Writes Songs That Work For Him

Toby Keith’s style of songwriting varies so broadly from song to song that even the 32-year-old country singer finds it difficult to define exactly what a Toby Keith song sounds like.

“You can’t say Toby Keith has a certain kind of style,” he says during a recent interview. “You can’t tie two of my records together and say the songs sound the same. The critics might suggest I have a certain specific style, but when they really listen to my music and get into what I’m doing, they say, ‘He’s real versatile.”’

Currently, his song “You Ain’t Much Fun” is No. 2 on the Billboard country singles chart.

Keith’s story of breaking into country radio nationwide reads like it was drawn from the script of the movie “Urban Cowboy.”

During his high school days in Oklahoma City, Keith lived through the oil boom of the late ‘70s that brought prosperity to the region, drawing thousands to work in the oil fields at high-paying blue-collar jobs.

Keith, who wisely stayed in school and graduated, recalls, “There were kids who at 17 quit school, got a release signed and went to work in the oil fields and had a house of their own and a nice truck while I was finishing my senior year of high school. They would cruise around town and have big parties at their homes while I was playing sports and studying to graduate.

“I skipped college to go into the oil fields with my dad,” he continues. “He’d been doing oilfield work all of his life. You were in a dangerous work area. I have seen people die. I have seen people maimed or badly hurt. There were older, more experienced men, who did not allow you to make mistakes. Everything had to work like clockwork; there was no time for somebody to be daydreaming. In a sense it prepared me for life.”

Despite the long hours and the harsh demands the work made on Keith, he still found time to enjoy his principal hobby, playing country music. On weekends Keith would sing and play with a group of his friends in a garage group called the Easy Money Band.

Once they put together enough material to hold down a club date, Keith’s band started playing the country hot spots around Oklahoma City. The weekend excursions into the barrooms and roadhouses at first provided amusement for Keith. But later on, when the oil boom faded, Keith began to get serious about making a living out of his troubadour lifestyle.

He recalls, “I was making $6,000 a year with a kid on the way. The easy days were over. My family was thinking that I was wasting my time, but I never quit believing. To get through some years after the oil fields slowed down,we’d work playing clubs 51 weeks out of 52.”

Even after Keith landed a position in the nowdefunct USFL playing pro football for two years with the Oklahoma Drillers, he continued to perform in the clubs during the offseason.

Keith’s first break came when he was introduced to the national public via a marketing ploy called Triple Play. Along with Shania Twain and John Brannen, Keith toured the country, playing showcase dates in select cities. But it wasn’t long before Keith broke from the pack and his popularity soared on the strength of his 1993 No. 1 single “Should’ve Been A Cowboy.”

“I didn’t have anything when I wrote ‘Should’ve Been A Cowboy,”’ he says. “So I had to have a song break through for me, because if my second single flopped I knew I would just go by the wayside. When ‘Cowboy’ went No. 1, the record company called me at home that evening to tell me the news. I knew at that moment that this was an achievement no one would ever take away from me.”

Keith’s second album, “Boomtown,” draws from his own personal history. The title track details Keith’s oil-field days and the fleeting prosperity that left many of Keith’s hometown friends devastated when the wells were capped and the work dried up.

With seven country hits to his credit in only two years, Keith is amazed how well he’s done in a genre where the competition becomes increasingly ruthless with each passing week.

“I hope I don’t jinx myself by saying this, but it comes real easy,” he says. “I just stay with the songs that work for me. I try to load my album down with songs I feel will work for me and just go with my heart every time.”