Toby Keith, Country Music Icon, Dead at 62

Toby Keith

Toby Keith, who released hit after hit over the years, making himself a household name in country music, has passed away. He was 62.

The country music icon's official website and social media shared the news early Tuesday, Feb 6., about 18 months after he shared his stomach cancer diagnosis.

The statement noted that he passed away "peacefully" on Monday night surrounded by family, adding, "He fought his fight with grace and courage."

Keith was born in Clinton, Oklahoma in 1961 to parents Carolyn Joan and Hubert K. Covel Jr. After his birth, Keith's family lived in Arkansas for a time, before moving back to Oklahoma in the middle of his schooling.

As he grew up, Keith would return to spend the summers in Fort Smith, Arkansas with his grandmother, discovering his love of music at Billie Garner's Supper Club, which she owned. There, musicians came to play often, and soon enough, Keith joined them onstage to perform.

While Keith worked in the oil fields after graduating high school, he continued to pursue music on the side, forming a band called the Easy Money Band with a bunch of friends when he was 20. In 1984, the group found some success playing at honky-tonks in Oklahoma and Texas.

Related: Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean and More Pay Tribute to Late Toby Keith

While the band went to Nashville, Tennessee in the early 1990s in an attempt to get noticed, it was unsuccessful. Soon after, Keith went out on his own with demos to try, and thanks to some luck, a flight attendant and fan of his gave his tape to Harold Shedd, a Mercury Records executive, who soon signed him.

Keith and his music were popular right from the start, as his debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy," reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1993, and his debut self-titled album was also successful, selling more than one million copies in the U.S.

From then on, Keith's career flourished. He released more than 25 albums, including some greatest hits compilations and Christmas albums, with many more hit singles over the years. A few memorable standouts are "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This," "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)," and "Beer for My Horses," the last of which was a duet with Willie Nelson.

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Keith is survived by his wife Tricia Lucus, whom he married in 1984, as well as his three children—Shelley, Lucus' daughter from a previous relationship whom Keith adopted when they got together, as well as a daughter named Krystal and a son named Stelen. Keith and Lucus also have a number of grandkids.

Next, Toby Keith Opened Up About Dying in Heartbreaking Interview Just Weeks Before His Death