Remembering Toby Keith, a Lehigh Valley favorite who packed Allentown Fair and Musikfest

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The irony may be that it seems the times in which we’re living would have been perfect for a comeback by Toby Keith.

Keith, who the Recording Industry Association of America says is the seventh best-selling solo male country artist ever, died Monday at 62 after a battle with stomach cancer, according to the singer’s website.

Keith was a favorite of Lehigh Valley fans. He last played the area in a 2021 headline show at Allentown Fair’s grandstand, and also played a sold-out show at Musikfest’s main Steel Stage in 2017.

He first played the area in 1998, when he helped draw 11,200 to the fairgrounds in a non-fair show for a radio station WCTO-FM “Cat Country 96.1 Listener Appreciation Concert.”

He first played the fair as an opener for Brooks and Dunn in 2001, then headlined to a sold-out crowd of nearly 10,500 at the fair in 2002 and a near-sellout crowd of more than 10,000 at the fair in 2008. He also returned to the fair in 2013.

But it was Keith’s most recent area appearance — that 2021 fair show — that showed it might have been time for him again.

In an unsettling world, Keith over the course of his career seemed to provide assurance with his music.

More than 20 years ago, when the world was battered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Keith gave us all confidence with his song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”

Ten years later, when the country seemed adrift, Keith assured us it was alright to find comfort in our “Red Solo Cup.”

And when, in 2021, live music returned to venues after coronavirus shutdowns, it was Keith who brought concerts back as the first post-COVID headliner at Allentown Fair.

Thirty years of success

After releasing his self-titled debut album in 1993, Keith produced 24 Top 10 country albums — 10 of which went No. 1. At one point, from 2001 to 2011, 10 of the 12 albums he released hit No. 1.

He was the Country Music Association’s Male Vocalist of the Year in 2001 and the Academy of Country Music’s Top Male Vocalist in 200 and 2003, and Entertainer of the Year in 2002 and 2003. He won the latter’s Album of the Year in 2000 for “How Do You Like Me Now” and 2003 for “Shock’n Y’all.”

In all, 12 of his albums went platinum and six more went gold. His biggest sellers, “Unleashed” and “Shock’n Y’all,” sold 4 million copies each. Overall, he sold nearly 30 million albums.

Keith has had 57 Top 40 country hits, 41 of which went Top 10, including 20 that went to No. 1. Fifteen of his hits have gone gold or platinum.

His first single, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” in 1993, became the most-played country song of the 1990s. Subsequent top hits included “How Do You Like Me Now” in 1999, “I Just Want to Talk About Me” in 2001 and “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” in 2002.

Other hits include “Beer for My Horses” with Willie Nelson, 2003’s “American Soldier, ” 2009’s “American Ride, ” 2011’s “Made in America” and his 2005 platinum hit “As Good as I Once Was.”

But his “Red Solo Cup” was in a different category. A tribute to the beer-party drinking cup, the song crossed over into the Top 15 on the general music charts and sold more than 2 million copies.

'Happy birthday America'

It was on his final album, 2021’s “Peso in My Pocket,” released right after his final Allentown Fair show, that Keith showed it may have been time for him again.

In a 2021 interview with this reporter before that Allentown Fair show, Keith talked about his then-new hit, “Happy Birthday America,” which was his last Top 40 hit.

He told how it was the Fourth of July 2020 — amid the rancor of the presidential election and COVID-19 bearing down — that he traveled to his lake house in Grand Lake, Oklahoma, to spend the holiday on his boat, watching an Independence Day fireworks display he said draws the rich and influential from around the country.

The local radio station synced its playlist with the display, and it ended with his “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

As the show ended, Keith said, a friend watching with him, “threw his arms out and yelled out in front of everybody, ‘Happy birthday, America!’

“And I said, ‘Whatever’s left of you.'”

Keith said that statement, “Whatever’s left of you,” haunted him enough that he wrote it in his phone. And on his usual morning runs, “I just had that idea in my head and I wrote” the song.

“I just thought, look how many times this great county has saved the world from tyranny,” Keith said. “And it just feels like it’s completely disintegrating at the 50-yard line. And I don’t know if there’s ever going to be any way for everybody to become unified again.

“The smallest little thing will divide you by the other side. And instead of seeing all the things we have in common, they see one little thing that separates you from them. Then you get all the check marks, you know what I mean? And it’s equal on both sides.

“I think the most powerful piece of that song is where it says, ‘The left wants it this way, the right wants it that way. Neither one can get it fixed.’

"And at the end of the day, they narrow it down to two people, and you end up voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s not really the person you want. So you end up voting for the person who’ll do the least harm.

“And that’s just what the whole thing was about. And kind of a lot of people feel that way on both sides of the fence.”

'As good as I once was'

In that interview, Keith also talked about the changes he had seen in country music — and in his life.

“I’m not gonna change and go play whatever I need to play to get on the radio,” he said about changes to country music.

“I mean, I wouldn’t even know how to write that. I wouldn’t even try to do that. So I was, like, I’m just gonna lay off a while and see if this is just a passing phase or something.”

And he addressed the fact that he had just turned 60 — quite a milestone for someone who nearly 20 years ago wrote a triple-platinum, No. 1 hit about aging called "As Good As I Once Was."

“Well, it felt like turning 50,” he said. “I don’t know. I remember when my parents were 60, I was thinking, ‘God, that’s a long haul.’

"But I don’t feel that. I mean, I’m active and my voice is as good as ever. In fact, I’ve learned to sleep better. I could go out and do four, five shows in a row and only get tired on the end of it, vocally. And I haven’t had that in two or three years.

“So knock on wood, I think I’m just as strong as I can go.”