Toby Keith was genuinely a national treasure. It's still hard to believe that the country music world - and the world at large - lost Toby Keith back in February of this year. The "American Soldier" singer passed away at the age of 62 after a long battle with stomach cancer. Now, we're closing in on the one year anniversary of his passing - which seems almost unfathomable. Tributes to the Big Dog Daddy have basically gone on ever since he passed on in February. The University of Oklahoma implemented a Toby Keith sing along at every one of their home football games, and that new tradition was most recently highlighted when country star Riley Green helped the crowd of 80,000 plus break into Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue." That's how you do a Toby Keith tribute by the way (I'm talking to you CMA Awards). Though we no longer have the country icon here with us on Earth, his spirit and his music will live on forever. That's been incredibly evident as country music stars have honored him by adding TK covers into their setlists, as well as all of the important work that the Toby Keith foundation has been able to do to help families that are fighting cancer. Toby Keith left behind a legacy as a singer, songwriter, performer, businessman, and entrepreneur. He truly built an empire that will stand the test of time, and in order for a person to do that, they have to be a pretty persistent and hard-working individual. Toby was certainly that, but as he explained on The Big Interview with Dan Rather back in 2018, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows when he was first trying to get started: "I was trying to get a record deal, and I had just been turned down by Capitol Records in Nashville. Very famous Rat Pack producer Jimmy Bowen had just turned me down and said, 'We've already got Garth Brooks, we're not looking for a male artist, and your songwriting... you need to go back to the woodshed.'" That's a tough message to hear from an aspiring artist, but Keith took that rejection to heart and whipped up a song not long after that. You may have heard of it... it was called "Should've Been A Cowboy." It's famously documented that Toby Keith wrote "Should've Been A Cowboy" in 20 minutes after he watched his hunting buddy get rejected at the bar. Once the country music industry got ahold of that song, Toby Keith was well on his way to being a star. But he never got complacent, and was always working to hone and improve in his craft. Keith said that all came from a mindset he adopted from the get-go: "Work ethic. I'm from Oklahoma, and it was the work ethic that was put in. It was like, 'They might out-write us, they might out-sing us, and they might out-play us, and they might out-sell us. But they can't out-work us.'" Hope you are taking notes as you are reading this. If you are, make sure to write down this next quote from Toby Keith. It's one to live by for sure, and explains why the Big Dog Daddy and the music that he shared had such a big impact on the world: "If you work every day of your life, you'll get luckier and you'll be more productive. I just put my nose to the grindstone and had a lot of luck and a great fanbase." Love that. We can all learn a little bit (or a lot) from that perspective, and I'll speak for all of us when I say that thank God Toby Keith worked hard enough to get luckier and more productive - otherwise we would have all been sh*t out of luck. R.I.P. Big Dog Daddy: https://youtu.be/CaqecV3kSro?si=pXCZIpmEqRgzZWAI&t=77

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