TOBY TALKS
Country music star discusses hometown charity project, Poet’s Award, playing Saudi Arabia and more
Standing on stage with John Daly and a cadre of their fans, Toby Keith flashed an easy grin and raised his plastic cup.
It hadn’t been his idea to take bids on an opportunity to take a shot of whiskey with him and the professional golfer —his comedian pal Rodney Carrington served up that brainstorm —but the country music superstar wasn’t going to miss a shot to raise another $23,000 for his namesake foundation’s primary project, the OK Kids Korral.
“Well, what’s good about it is that it was my calling. You know, my guitar player in my original band lost a kid to cancer. … I can’t cure cancer, but I can facilitate the other side of it,” Keith said of his foundation’s no-cost home-away-from-home for pediatric cancer patients seeking treatment at OU Medical Center.
“When people drive by it or go up there and they’ve donated to the OK Kids Korral, they ... can see the sticks and bricks and actually where the money’s going.”
Like the impromptu salute added at his recent "Denim and Diamonds" gala and auctions, Keith, 55, has accepted several unexpected opportunities this year, although taking on some of them has made him the target of hostility rather than the proverbial toast of the town.
Along with his record-
breaking fundraising event earlier this month, this year so far has included a first-time show in Saudi Arabia, a Carnegie Hall concert in honor of one of his musical heroes, an upcoming Poet’s Award from the Academy of Country Music and a cheeky new single with a video featuring his legendary pal Willie Nelson.
Of course, Keith started 2017 with a headlining concert at President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities.
“I played the (Nobel) Peace Prize (festivities) for Obama in Oslo. I played at the White House for George W. (Bush). Anytime the commander in chief invites me to come play at a ceremony for our country, I’ll go. And I don’t care what anybody says about any of that. I’m a big boy. I can take the heat. I’m your guy,” Keith told The Oklahoman backstage at Riverwind Casino before serving as emcee of his hometown charity event.
“Hell, yes, it’s an honor. The president of the United States asks you to come do something, or you get to attend an event where the president is, you always go. It doesn’t matter which one you play for, you’re gonna get flak. And most people don’t wanna go ’cause they don’t want the flak. And I take it as an honor.”
Live in Saudi Arabia
The Oklahoma native said he accepted another opportunity to represent his country when he performed in concert last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he shared the stage with popular Saudi singer and oud player Rabeh Saqer.
“It was the first concert by anybody from this hemisphere to ever play there. They haven’t had a Saudi national play there in like 30 years, so the guy I played with, Rabeh, he doesn’t get to go do live concerts,” Keith said. “They have very strict religious rules on things that you can do.”
Until recently, public music performances were banned by the government in Riyadh, the ultraconservative capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As NPR reports, the Saudi government last summer announced an ambitious economic diversification plan called"Vision 2030,” which established theGeneral Entertainment Authoritythat is "responsible for regulating the entertainment sector in the Kingdom, developing it, and elevating all its components and capabilities."
“They’re also bringing the (Harlem) Globetrotters, they’re doing a USA-Saudi soccer game, drag racing. So, it feels like the king is reaching out, trying to adjust to the times. And it just so happened while I was over there that Trump was over there,” Keith said.
The authority labels each performance as for “men only” or for “families,” the latter meaning that women can attend as long as they are accompanied by male guardians, according to NPR. Although he was widely criticized for playing a men-only show, Keith said he viewed the Saudi government inviting an American to perform publicly alongside one of their stars as a step in the right direction.
“It feels like the royal family in Saudi Arabia is really reaching out. I just feel like there’s some change coming on,” he said.
Keith’s appearance was sponsored by MBC Group, a regional satellite broadcasting company, his publicist said. A Saudi spokesman told TheWashington Post that the General Entertainment Authority organized the concert to mark the end of students’ exam period.
“Most of the people there I think were invited. But it was more of an event that was put up on TV, so it was more like a studio audience,” Keith said, adding he was paid handsomely for the performance.
“There wasn’t enough seats there to handle very many people, but they’re very friendly. They were very accepting to what I did. I took the challenge of it being historical and being the only person on this side of the planet to ever play there live.”
Meshing musical styles with his Saudi co-star was a challenge, but the singer-songwriter said he got goose bumps when he and his band managed to bond musically with their Middle Eastern counterparts.
“Me and Rabeh played ‘Should’ve Been a Cowboy’ together, and I played on one of his songs,” Keith said. “I’ve got one of the best bands in the world —half of them play in the studio in Nashville —and all of us together combined had a real difficult time trying to write a chart on what they were doing. Their music is very unstructured, it’s very different. But me and Rabeh found one little common spot where we could jam together, and we did. And we made history.”
Along with playing a few of his hits, Keith said he and his band covered American classics like Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” and Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Songwriter tributes
The Norman resident accepted another musical challenge last month when he performed at an event honoring fellow Oklahoma native and Songwriters Hall of Famer Jimmy Webb at Carnegie Hall. Webb told The Oklahoman Keith was a hit with the New York crowd after belting Webb’s legendary pop epic “MacArthur Park.”
“It’s the hardest Jimmy Webb song, is what it is,” Keith said. “It was challenging. For some reason, he really wanted to hear my version of it, and it’s one of the most amazing things I ever did. It really was. You really gotta be able to hit several octaves. You’re at Carnegie Hall, you’re doing one song, you get no warm-ups, you walk on stage, and 20 other artists have done every other Jimmy Webb song and you do ‘MacArthur Park.’ ”
In August, Keith officially will join Webb as a recipient of the Academy of Country Music’s Poet’s Award, which honors songwriters for their outstanding and long-lasting contributions to country music. Keith will receive the award at the 11th Annual ACM Honors Aug. 23 in Nashville, Tennessee, and the show will be broadcast at a later date on CBS. “That’s what I was, first and foremost. I was a songwriter, so that’s the accolades I’d rather have,” Keith said.
New song, broken record
Becausehe continues to write constantly, Keith, who was born in Clinton and raised in Moore, has a mischievous new single he’s been playing on his summer tour. He wrote “Wacky Tobaccy” with his longtime collaborator Scotty Emerick, and yes, it’s about just what you think it is.
“Willie Nelson’s in the video. He didn’t sing on it, but he’s in the video,” said Keith, who said he favors legalizing cannabis because “if you drink liquor you ought to be able to smoke weed.”
And the ad-libbed toast at his charity event turned out to be apt: The 14th Annual Toby Keith and Friends Golf Classic at Norman’s Belmar Golf Club, along with the"Denim and Diamonds" gala the night before, raised a record-breaking $1.6 million for the Toby Keith Foundation and OK Kids Korral.
“I go down there all the time. I go down there eight or 10 times a year. When we’re not doing my event, we do bike runs and stuff that we always stop in. A big Toys for Tots Christmas that 400 or 500 bikers rode in … so I’m always pretty close to most of the families,” Keith said. “Some people hit … and run. But we have families that stay three or four months, two or three times. So it provides a wonderful facility for everybody.”