Toby Keith's 35 Biggest Hits Sets New Milestone
Published
Toby Keith’s 35 Biggest Hits
Sets New Milestone
Collection Surpasses 150 Weeks
On Billboard Top 200
Academy Of Country Music,
CMT, Others Pay Tribute
(NORMAN, Okla.) Singer, songwriter and entertainer Toby Keith is continuing to set new records, even posthumously. His 35 Biggest Hits collection has set a career mark for longevity on Billboard‘s all-genre Top 200, now at 151 weeks and counting. As Forbes notes, 35 Biggest Hits is “unlikely to disappear anytime soon.” Additionally, the release is one of three Toby Keith titles to hit triple digit tenure on the Top 200. Behind it are Greatest Hits 2 at 106 weeks and Unleashed, which spent 104 weeks on the chart – exactly two years.
The chart record comes as tributes to the late icon continue. Most recently, the former Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year was remembered with a stirring performance of his “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” by Jason Aldean at last month’s 59th ACM Awards.
Billboard said of the performance, “As Aldean and his guitarists played in front of a montage of color and black-and-white photos of the late country legend, the crowd could be heard clearly singing along to the song’s famous chorus, with cutaways to some of the audience members showing them to be in tears.” The Tennessean called it “a simple, heartfelt [tribute] that at times was only overshadowed by vocals emanating from the crowd.” The ACM audio has been released as a single and is available here.
Last month, Keith was posthumously awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. Former OU head football coach Bob Stoops noted, “From his humble beginnings in Clinton to the bright lights of Nashville, Toby carried the essence of Oklahoma with him every step of the way.” Accepting the honor on her father’s behalf, Krystal Keith said, “When he learned, last fall, that he was being inducted to Sooner Nation on this high of a level, he was so excited and he was so proud. He simply bled Crimson & Cream.”
Other tributes have included a Stagecoach Festival performance of “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” by Jelly Roll and T-Pain, which has been released for purchase via Amazon Music, with proceeds that benefit the Toby Keith Foundation which funds OK Kids Korral, the cost-free home for families of children dealing with critical illnesses. View the Amazon Original performance here. Also at Stagecoach, Post Malone covered Keith’s “Who’s Your Daddy?”
And during a private performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium shortly after Keith’s passing, Luke Combs covered “Should’ve Been A Cowboy.” As Billboard reported, Combs responded to crowd chants for a Toby Keith song, “I’m glad you guys asked, because we didn’t know if we should do a Toby song. It’s good to know you love Toby’s music as much as we do.”
One of the most prolific self-directed creative forces in country’s modern era. Keith amassed 42 top 10 hits, 33 No. 1s, more than 44 million albums sold, 100 million BMI performances, and more than 10 billion streams largely on the strength of his own songwriting and producing. He was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame shortly before his passing in February. Among his many accomplishments, the New York based all-genre Songwriters Hall of Fame (2015), the National Medal of Arts (2021), the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2021), and BMI Icon (2022) were his most treasured.
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Available for purchase at Amazon Music,
with proceeds that benefit the Toby Keith Foundation which funds OK Kids Korral,
the cost-free home for families of children dealing with critical illnesses.
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