Weeks After Death, Toby Keith Named to Country Music Hall of Fame

Perhaps it would have been even better if Toby Keith was still around to share in this moment with the rest of us. But it still feels just about perfect and poignant that less than six weeks after Toby Keith tragically passed away at the age of 62 after a fight with stomach Cancer, he’s headed into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The honor was announced Monday morning (3-18) in a press conference in the Hall of Fame rotunda in Nashville.
Toby Keith goes in with John Anderson in the Veteran’s era category, and musician James Burton in the rotating musician’s category. Keith’s son Stelen was there to accept the honor for his father. He briefly thanked the Hall of Fame.
“On behalf of my whole family, we want to thank the Hall of Fame. It’s an honor to stand here and represent my father. He was an amazing man, husband, father, and artist. And I just want to thank everybody for being here,” Stelen said.

The Country Music Hall of Fame has a standing rule that artists can’t be inducted the year after they pass away to discourage sympathy votes. But in the case of Toby Keith, his passing came right as the committee seeded by the CMA tabulated its final decision on February 6th—the day after Toby Keith died. In this instance, the inductee is allowed to go through if they receive the most votes.
The CEO of the CMA, Sarah Trahern, took to the podium to explain what happened.
“This year we anticipated receiving the names of our final inductees on Tuesday, February the 6th. As we know now, we woke up that morning to the heartbreaking news that our friend Toby Keith had lost his long battle with stomach Cancer. What’s bittersweet is that just a few hours later, out team received word that Keith was elected in the Modern Era category … My heart sank that Tuesday afternoon knowing that we had missed the chance of informing Toby while he was still with us. But I have no doubt that he’s smiling down on us, knowing that he will always be as good as he once was.”
Trahern continued, “I should mention that while the rules of election do not allow someone to be elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the year in which they pass away, that doesn’t apply this year as Toby was selected before he died.”
In truth, Keith was likely already a front runner due to his health concerns, and his landmark TV performance of “Don’t Let The Old Man In” in late 2023.
What’s inarguable is that Toby Keith amassed a Hall of Fame career in his time on earth. In the first decade of the 2000’s, there was no country music artist that was more commercially successful than Toby Keith, both as an entertainer, and as a businessman. Keith put 20 #1 singles on the charts during an eight year run, and had another seven #2’s during this same period. Toby Keith was mainstream country music in the aughts.
“Should’ve Been a Cowboy” was the first single from the Oklahoma native in 1993, and it was a massive one. Now a country music standard that’s Certified Triple Platinum, it announced what would be a career that would eventually land in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and it did with with a traditional country song that helped define the ’90s country era.
More hits would come in the next eight years for Mercury Nashville, but the fact that the label put out a Greatest Hits compilation on Keith in 1998 tells you a lot. At that time, they thought Toby Keith was done. As we would see in the coming years, he was just beginning. Toby Keith also wrote most all of his own songs, including, if not especially his hits. Brushing aside Toby Keith the performer, Toby Keith the songwriter is one of the most successful of the era, and one of the most successful to ever do it in country music.
2002’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” written in direct response to 9/11 is what would go on to define the career of Toby Keith, as well as popular country music for the next decade. The stark language in the song drew its opponents, but that polarization only lent to the song’s popularity. “Beer For My Horses” with Willie Nelson in 2003 not only put a country legend back on the charts, it continued the type of sabre rattling songs that would become Toby Keith’s signature.
2003 saw Toby Keith’s album Shock’n Y’all, whose title exploited the fact that Toby Keith’s stark Americanism drew the ire of many. But unabated, Keith redirected the criticism into a point of pride.
Though Keith would be considered the seat of American jingoism for many in the post 9/11 world, his actual political legacy was significantly more nuanced. At the time “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” was released, Toby Keith was a registered Democrat. Though Keith will be criticized for performing for Donald Trump, he also performed for multiple Democrat Presidents as well.
Nonetheless, Toby Keith was a polarizing figure in country music for much of his career, including feuding with The [Dixie] Chicks, who were also rumored to be in consideration for Hall of Fame induction in the Modern Era category, and likely will be inducted in the coming years.
But upon Toby Keith’s death, there appeared to be a great reconciliation with many of the more divergent elements of his career, and to remember Toby Keith the man, the singer, the songwriter, and the musician. It’s that man who will be formally placed forevermore into the Country Music Hall of Fame in a Medallion Ceremony later this year.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:31 am
Can’t really argue this pick either. He dominated country music in the early 2000’s and had the most played song of the 1990s. To bad he’s not here to enjoy it, but I’m sure it’s bitter sweet for his family.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:32 am
The selections of Toby Keith and John Anderson are both much deserved, but I’m most pumped about James Burton. Hopefully he gets his own writeup as well.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:56 am
James Burton will also be honored. To be frank, I was not expecting his induction above Don Rich, Buddy Emmons, and a few others. I think it’s deserved, but a little unexpected, unlike Toby Keith and John Anderson.
March 18, 2024 @ 9:33 am
He’s still alive and I think that was probably the difference maker. There really does need to be a separate category to induct older veteran’s era nominees and I also think they could remedy the musician backlog by doing something similar to what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame did back in 2011. That was the year they retroactively inducted the Blue Caps, the Crickets, the Comets, the Famous Flames, the Midnighters and the Miracles, decades after their front men had received the honor. Retroactively inducting the Buckaroos, the Drifting Cowboys, the Texas Playboys, the Strangers, the Waylors, the Cherokee Cowboys, the Smoky Mountain Boys, the Blue Grass Boys and others would clear up so much of the backlog in that category and allow them to induct more of the session musicians they clearly favor anyway.
March 18, 2024 @ 1:08 pm
Health was the deciding factor in the 2024 Hall of Fame picks, as it has been a factor in numerous other recent picks. Toby Keith obviously was ailing, John Anderson has had serious health issues lately, though it appears he’s been recovering well, and Jame Burton is 84. I can’t quibble with any of these three picks, but I do think it says something deeper about the Hall of Fame process when these inductions are coming down to the wire of whether they will happen right before an artist dies. The deciding factor should be who is most deserving, not who is about to die so we need to induct them now.
March 18, 2024 @ 6:09 pm
I agree that artistry should be the determining factor, not when someone is about to kick the bucket! Maybe it’s Baptist guilt 🙂
March 18, 2024 @ 7:19 pm
It’s too bad your boyfriend Zach Bryan doesn’t have a terminal illness cause I’m sure you think he deserves to be in the hall already for his garbage songs
March 18, 2024 @ 11:20 pm
I would for sure Vote on Pete Kirby aka Bashful Bro Oswald,long-time Smoky Mountain Boy and Roy’s right hand man,60+plus years on the Opry.
And Ralph “Moon” Mooney who wrote “Crazy Arms”,made a hit by Ray Price,Jerry Lee Lewis,and Willie Nelson, but Ralph’s Pedal Steel on Merle Haggard’s “Swinging Door’s”,Buck Owens-” Above and Beyond”,”Excuse Me”,and “Under your Spell Again”, and long-time signature sound for Waylon Jennings(with Waylon’s Guitar and Bass Guitar and Richie Albright’s Drum Beat.
Ralph Mooney also made an Album with James Burton,too. Ralph will be in there some year. Watch.
March 18, 2024 @ 9:34 am
I think Burton is a very solid pick. Before Buddy Emmons? Ehh. Emmons is dead and maybe they picked Burton because he’s still alive to enjoy the honor. As good as Don Rich was, and he was terrific, I think Burton may get the nod due to the sheer volume of work he did for so many legends. Regardless, he played on so many of the most iconic Haggard tunes, like Swingin Doors, Branded Man, Mama Tried, Lonesome Fugitive, Workin Man Blues, for example. And of course he played on Emmylou Harris’s records, Hank Jr Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, Rodney Crowells Ain’t Livin Long Like This, Johnny Lee’s Lookin For Love, Ricky Nelson’s early hits, Waylon albums, and some cat named Elvis that you may have heard of!
His influence on guitarists is up there. Everyone from Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Redd Volkart and probably half of the Nashville studio pickers, folks like Brent Mason, Tom Bukovac, and so on. It’s well earned.
John Anderson is a very solid pick, and TK is a no- Brainer.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:34 am
This induction is right on target for the modern era. No complaints from me.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:42 am
His induction probably got expedited with his health concerns, but it’s hard to argue against the pick. He was a shoe-in someday, and with good reason.
March 18, 2024 @ 9:13 am
Well deserved. I am still shocked at his death. I just wish he had been alive to receive the honour.
March 18, 2024 @ 10:03 am
Where did you ever get the idea that the release of a Greatest Hits album signified the END of an artist’s career or that was the perspective of a record label? Dozens of country artists have released “Greatest Hits” or “Best Of” compilations in the midst of their most prolific hit-making eras. In 1964 Capitol released The Best Of Buck Owens just as his career was going into high gear. Johnny Cash’s first Columbia Greatest Hits album was released in 1967 before his most successful era even began. Merle Haggard’s first Best Of LP was released in 1968 as was Loretta Lynn’s first Greatest Hits album. Charley Pride & Tammy Wynette both released their first hit collections in 1969. George Strait’s first Greatest Hits LP was released in 1985. All of these artists had many hit-making years ahead of them. One of the rationales for a label to issue a hit compilation is to appeal to the casual fan that may not purchase every album that a singer releases but just wishes to own the most familiar and biggest single hit recordings. Many of the compilations contain a brand new single or two to encourage core fans to also purchase the new release.
Sometime a Greatest Hits or Best Of set is released when an artist is departing a label for another imprint. After Reba McEntire had left Mercury for MCA, her former label issued a Best Of Reba collection in 1985. [Two years later Reba’s first of several Greatest Hits volumes was released on MCA]. A similar situation occurred for Toby Keith in 1998 when Mercury issued his Greatest Hits album on the eve of his departure for the DreamWorks imprint. His career was only over at Mercury. That album likely fulfilled his contract with Mercury..
The notion that a “hits” compilation is equated with the final curtain of an artist’s career is generally untrue unless the artist has died. Pasty Cline’s Greatest Hits on Decca was issued in 1967, four years after her tragic death.
March 18, 2024 @ 11:15 am
He’s talked about it before. He gave them a full album not a greatest hits. Part of his contract exiting with them he had to buy it back. Which he did. That was his attitude with “how do you like me now”
March 18, 2024 @ 10:26 am
I’m happy for all 3 ! I was shocked though I never thought Toby Keith would be in there this year since he just passed away. I thought it was called a “Sympathy Vote” and a person deceased has to wait a year after their death to be considered. I wish Toby were alive to see this and accept this.
I really wished the HOF would add another category so forgotten people from 50-60 years who paid their dues would get Inducted- Molly O’Day,Bailes Brothers,Johnny & Jack,LuluBelle & Scotty Wiseman,Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith,June Carter(and sisters),”Bashful Bro Oswald”Pete Kirby.
If anybody doesn’t know who these folks-entertainers are,they need to youtube and research them because they are the format of Country Music and have been forgotten by the Hall of Fame.
March 18, 2024 @ 10:32 am
What a bunch of horse shit!! These assholes knew he had a terminal disease and also knew damn well he deserved to be in the HOF, and was going to eventually be selected, but they wait until he’s dead to vote him in. His widow and family should tell the HOF to go fuck themselves.
March 18, 2024 @ 10:44 am
Back in 2019, Toby wrote and recorded a song called “That’s Country Bro,” where he name dropped (among others) Johnny Horton, Woody Guthrie, Don Rich, Crystal Gayle, David Allan Coe, Earl Thomas Conley, Eddie Rabbitt, and Shenandoah. I think if he were here, he would be humbled to be inducted before those performers.
March 19, 2024 @ 10:45 am
Toby always stuck me as one of the few modern country singers who listened to those acts on his tour bus. Most modern country singers listen to pop or rap on their tour buses.
Not Toby.
March 20, 2024 @ 11:28 am
TK said in an interview he had a 5000 song playlist on his phone and it was all classic Country that he listened to.
March 18, 2024 @ 10:52 am
They literally tried to get him in while he was still alive by voting for him this year. Not their fault he died just before they had the chance to notify him.
March 18, 2024 @ 11:00 am
As critical as I have been to the Hall of Fame over the years for not inducting people before they die, I think this sentiment is unfair. They voted him in before he died, he just died before it had been confirmed and announced. His health is likely the reason they voted him in this year. None of us knew that Keith was terminal. That is one of the reasons his death was so shocking. He’d said in interviews he was getting better.
Taking all of the health issues aside, when I take a step back and ask myself when Toby Keith should be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, I would have said 2024 would make a good year. Any time before may have felt early, a few years from now would feel too late.
They could have been pricks and said he was ineligible because he died. I think this was the right decision all the way around.
March 19, 2024 @ 2:08 am
Toby’s somewhat early induction–came as a bit a surprise because I don’t think he was ever and industry favorite. I remember he was steamed about being passed over for the major awards, though eventually he won a couple of them.
Also, there was something that struck me and that no one has mentioned about the cancer-ridden Toby’s-already-iconic performance of “Don’t Let the Old Man In” at the People’s Choice Awards. The camera kept showing Toby’s wife, which was fine, but what it also showed is that virtually none of the industry superstars and bigwigs were there. I think that if Strait or Reba or Garth or Alan or Kenny or Tim were visibly gaunt and wracked with cancer and probably not far from death and they gave a likely final major performance at a nationally televised awards show, their fellow stars and top executives would have shown up to show support and pay respects.
March 19, 2024 @ 7:14 am
I definitely think that Patty Loveless performing “Blame It On Your Heart” on the CMA Awards helped put Patty Loveless in the Hall of Fame. I definitely think Toby Keith’s performance of “Don’t Let The Old Man In” on the otherwise stupid and meaningless PCCMAAPCC Awards helped put him in the Hall of Fame as well. The reason none of the industry bigwigs and superstars were there is because the awards were completely meaningless, like the CMT Awards. Toby Keith was the only good thing that happened.
March 19, 2024 @ 2:24 am
Toby had that John Wayne-at-the-end look in his final appearances.
I’d say that anyone who’s “been around enough to know” had a pretty good inkling that Toby was terminal, even if we didn’t want to say it.
March 18, 2024 @ 10:37 am
A well-deserved honour. RIP,Toby,you’ll never be forgotten by your fans !!!!!!
March 18, 2024 @ 11:28 am
If it were not for his tragic end, nobody here would agree with his induction. Nobody can deny his commercial prowess in the 2000s, but I don’t know… Too many bad songs for my taste.
March 18, 2024 @ 12:37 pm
I don’t know about that, the only name I had before him was Dwight Yoakam, it was his time in the modern era category.
March 18, 2024 @ 1:38 pm
I think most country fans would agree that he deserved induction and that he was getting close to his time, but if he hadn’t been sick,I think he would have have to have waited a few years. Yoakam would have gotten in before him l, and possibly Tritt and Black. Toby was pretty controversial until his illness. I think that alone would have kept him out a few more years.
March 19, 2024 @ 3:33 am
…so many great ones on the other hand, mr. rinaldi
March 19, 2024 @ 4:49 am
Don’t worry this site’s SAVIOR and yours will probably get in someday hope I’m not around to see it.
March 18, 2024 @ 1:46 pm
He wouldn’t be my choice; I’d rather see Dwight, Martina, or Kathy Mattea in first. But ultimately, even though TK wasn’t my cup of tea, I can’t argue that he didn’t have a Hall of Fame level career. I can’t complain about his selection, and I hope this brings some comfort to his family.
March 19, 2024 @ 10:46 am
Martina?
No way.
March 18, 2024 @ 5:11 pm
Toby’s 90s song were true blue classic country man.
Those songs made Alan Jackson look like “Hick Hop”.
Songs like “You Ain’t Much Fun”, “Didn’t Know Now what I didn’t know then” , “He Ain’t Worth Missing”, “Who’s that Man” — all from a bygone Era. For the time they were “retro” even for 1995.
He had to evolve by the late 90s. I don’t blame him. His 2000s stuff was a lot of fun. What a legend.
Very curious to know if he wrote any new songs these past 3 years. He was so gifted still, considering Don’t Let the Old Man In is pretty iconic even tho it wasn’t a #1
March 19, 2024 @ 4:27 pm
Gotta disagree with the first two sentences there. I love Toby’s 90’s output, but AJ was far more of a traditionalist than TK at that time. TK’s albums back then didn’t even have fiddle on them. He was very much “pop country” in that era.
March 19, 2024 @ 4:47 pm
Didn’t realize “He Ain’t Worth Missing” / “Whos that Man” was pop country.
My bad sir
March 18, 2024 @ 7:09 pm
So Dwight Yoakam still isn’t in….but Toby Keith is?
GTFO
What a joke.
March 19, 2024 @ 1:14 am
…the induction process into the cmhof does not work like playoffs.
March 19, 2024 @ 6:31 am
What kind of analogy is that? Sports Leagues also have their own HOF’s, not just playoffs….
March 19, 2024 @ 8:20 am
Toby Keith is an obvious pick for the country music Hall of Fame. He had a staggering, three decades plus of relevance. In country music, the vast majority of stars maybe turn out 10 good years of making hits, and then become legacy acts touring, selling new records that don’t get radio play to the people who were their fans from when they were getting radio play, and performing their hits to crowds of people. Very few people are still minting new smash hits 20 years down the line.
To say that m Toby Keith is one of the most legendary country acts of the modern era is an understatement. You can argue that only George Strait and Garth Brooks are more towering in the era
Regarding the Dixie chicks. It’s very unlikely they will ever be seriously considered for the Hall of Fame. Given that the entire country music industry moved on from them, and they in turn made disparaging remarks about country music, followed by a decades later return to form turning in weird songs that nobody remembers like Gaslighter.
The only thing that would Open the chicks up to consideration for getting into the country music Hall of Fame now is a genuine country music smash hit that returns them to the top of the charts
And that’s not very likely to happen
Regarding the country musicHall of Fame, inducting people while they are still living and possibly creating another category to induct people who are deceased :
Creating another category is just a disaster. Because then they will have to continue inducting people in that category indefinitely. And eventually they are going to run out of qualified people. At that point they would either have to retire the category entirely, probably to criticism, or start inducting people who shouldn’t be inducted at all.
The point of keeping the hole so exclusive hinges on only letting a few people in. And creating a new category that will result in the four new acts over four years being inducted, seems like a good idea until you realize that they either have to go in knowing which acts are eligible to get inducted, and then retire the category when they are inducted, or start, letting in some awfully weird choices to keep the category filled.
Either way, the exclusive nature of the hall is going to be compromised
A bulk induction in a single year would in theory clear the log jam, But what happens after the log jam is cleared?
Let’s just say that tomorrow, the list of 40 deserving acts is reduced down to two or three in the veterans category. That’s 37 acts getting inducted.
If they induct each of those acts over the next few years, they will effectively have a pool of maybe two or three people, even eligible for consideration who are newer artists that didn’t get inducted in the modern era, moving into the veterans category, which, as we have now established, is so free of the log jam, that they just aren’t getting people eligible in the category who are deserving of the distinction as fast as they are inducting them
This is how people like Blake Shelton are going to get inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Just because someone is eligible, doesn’t mean they are deserving. And clearing the logjam of all the eligible acts, it’s just going to mean that when they need to find a deserving act, every year, there are fewer qualified choices. And then people will start slipping through the cracks because they’re all who are eligible.
March 19, 2024 @ 6:36 pm
I’m not a fan of either of them, but FWIW McGraw and Chesney each had a lot more #1 hits, moved a lot more albums and sold a lot more concert tickets than TK.
March 19, 2024 @ 8:42 pm
He deserved to get in and I’m glad he did. I liked some of his stuff but others not so much. But his writing and his importance in the country scene put him over the top.
March 20, 2024 @ 8:41 am
Ah yes, the Nominal Country Music Hall of Fame doing what it does best: inducting arena Rock performers on the basis of their level of fame without regard to whether or not they consistently performed and helped C(c)ountry Music.