How much is Toby Keith worth?
| Net Worth: | $350 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Singer |
| Date of Birth: | July 8, 1961 (age 61) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 6 ft 2 in (1.9 m) |
About Toby Keith
Toby Keith is an American country singer, actor, songwriter, and record producer who has never failed to top the country charts with his awesome singles and albums. All his albums earned Gold and above certifications, while his very first debut “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” was the most played country song in the 90s. Toby Keith Covel is from Clinton, Oklahoma and was born July 8, 1961.
As a child, Toby Keith used to visit his grandmother’s eatery and was inspired by the musicians performing there. Learning a lot about music from those performers, he got his first guitar when he was eight.
Toby formed a band titled Easy Money Band with his friends and played music at local bars. Meanwhile, he also worked as the Operational Manager in the oil fields, but he lost the job after the decline in the oil industry in 1982. He then began playing with several semi-professional football teams in Oklahoma, while performing with his band in the night.
He gave up football soon after as he couldn’t qualify for higher level matches, eventually dedicating all of his time to music. He recorded demo songs with his band for distribution with an aim of getting signed up by a record company.
The turning point in his life came when Harold Shedd of Mercury Records listened to Toby’s demo and saw his live performance. He then recorded music with this label, witnessing his singles turning into huge hits.
“Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” his debut single ranked number one on the country music charts in 1993, while also cracking the top 100 on pop music charts. By the end of the 1990s, the song was the country’s most-played number of the decade. Further, he released his studio albums — Toby Keith, Boomtown, Blue Moon, and Dream Walkin’, from 1993-1997 for Mercury Records before leaving the label 1998.
In 2001, Toby’s father was killed in a road accident which made Keith write the controversial and hugely popular “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),”.
The artist was also termed as The Entertainer of The Year in 2002 and 2003 by the Academy of Country Music.
Keith’s very first record contract got him $20,000. When his first album became a grand success, he performed 150 concerts between March and December of 1993 which made him $5,000-10,000 dollars per night. With the second song of the album getting radio play in the middle of Toby’s tour, his fee was raised to $20,000 per show. The fact that most of his singles ranked high on the Billboard made him organize world tours with John Brannen and Shania Twain. Polydor Records was the next company that Toby worked and released his second hit album, Boomtown.
Next, he launched is third album Blue Moon with A&M Records, but then returned to Mercury Label due to corporate mergers.
Greatest Hits Volume One was Toby’s last album with Mercury Label, having its songs rank in the top 20 of different charts. When his contract was terminated, Toby began working with DreamWorks Records Nashville and released his incredibly successful single “How Do You Like Me Now?!” in 1999. The song was not only one of the toppers of various lists, but also the top country song of the year 2000. His next three albums Pull My Chain, Unleashed, and Shock’n Y’all, were certified four times Platinum and yielded three more number ones each.
Every year starting from 1993 to 2000, Toby kept releasing new albums, wherein each of the releases sold a minimum of 500,000 copies and more for some. When his label rejected a few songs of his How Do You Like Me Now album, Toby bought back the album from the label for $93,000, further flipping the rights to DreamWorks for an increased amount of $200,000.
The album then witnessed more than 3.1 million copies being sold.
He has a huge list of releases that includes 19 studio albums, 5 compilation albums, and 2 Christmas albums having total global sales of more than 40 million albums. His album Unleashed sold over 3 million copies and featured a hit duet Beer for My Horses with Willie Nelson.
Apart from being a great musician, Toby is an equally awesome entrepreneur and purchased a 10% stake in Big Machine in 2004. The stakes costed for $400,000 and Big Machine then went on to sign Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift. Every time a Big Machine artist get paid, Toby Keith gets paid as well. Soon after he launched his own record labels, a Las Vegas casino owner, Don Marrandino proposed of putting a Toby Keith-themed restaurant inside his casino. The restaurant was called I Love This Bar and Grill which ranked the country’s one of the top 50 grossing restaurants by the end of 2004.
After witnessing the success of his friend’s alcohol brand, Toby decided to venture into the booze business in the year 2007 and settled on Mezcal for his brand.
He then launched Wild Shot mezcal in March 2011 which emerged as the top premium mezcal in the United States by the end of the year. His huge business empire earns Toby an incredible estimated $60 million dollars per year.
Toby believes that his never-quit attitude and always moving to the next opportunity after every rejection that came his way is the secret to his success. When numerous labels in Nashville turned his recorded songs down, he never lost hope and kept trying. His idea is to be patient and keep looking hundreds of options to get your hands on that big one. Toby works with industries that make sense to him, starting from music and touring, further expanding into restaurants.
Summing-Up
Toby Keith is a fabulously popular American country music singer who started on his journey of music at a very young age after gaining inspiration from the musicians performing at his grandmother’s supper club. In the early 1990s, Keith signed with Mercury Records while launching his self-titled album in 1993 which was certified platinum.
