‘Catch of the Day’ – Toby Keith “Rum Is The Reason” [AUDIO]

He's a singer and a songwriter. He's an entrepeneur and a restauranteur. He's been a semipro football player, on oil field worker and professional wrestler. He's a philanthropist and proud supporter of our military. He's a husband, a father and a grandfather. And today, he is in our spotlight.

Toby Keith can pretty much answer "been there, done that" to just about anything you could bring up. And he probably has the t-shirt too. Born in Clinton, OK, Toby Keith Covell was raised in Ft. Smith, AR and Moore, OK. His interest in music was born while spending summers with his grandmother in Ft. Smith, who owned Billie Garner's Supper Club. The young Toby, who got his first guitar at age 8, would do odd jobs around the club, and then his grandmother would allow him to join the musicians up on the bandstand.

After graduating from Moore High School in 1978, Covell went on to the University of Oklahoma, where he spent one season as a defensive end on the Sooner football team, never playing a down. He then worked as a derrick hand in the oil fields, working his way up to become an operation manager by age 20. Covell continued his musical dream, playing in a group called Easy Money Band with friends and fellow oil field workers. When the oil industry took a down-turn in the early 80's, Toby would revert to his football years, signing on with the Oklahoma City Drillers, a minor-league affiliate of the United States Football League's Oklahoma outlaws.

Keith continued playing his music while playing football. The Drillers (and the USFL) would fold after a couple seasons, but Toby's music was beginning to pick up steam. The Easy Money Band played regularly throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, and in 1990 Toby would head to Nashville with a demo of the Easy Money Band. Music Row show no interest in the demo, so dejected, he would return to Oklahoma. Covell swore to himself that he would land a recording contract by the time he turned 30.

Fate would intervene. A fan of the Easy Money Band's honky-tonk performances happened to be a flight attendant. She possessed a copy of the demo, and when Mercury Records executive Harold Shedd happened to travel on one her flights, she gave him the demo. Shedd liked what he heard, traveled to see Keith perform live and then signed him to the label. Keith would release four studio and one greatest hits albums for Mercury, scoring 14 top-10 hits and 3 #1 hits.

In 1999, Keith would move on to DreamWorks Records Nashville, and his debut single for the label "How Do You Like Me Now?" (the title track from his first DreamWorks album) seemed to be a shot at Mercury Records. The single would climb to the top of the charts and would signal the start of a new era in Keith's career. He would release 5 studio records and 1 greatest hits compilation for DreamWorks Nashville, which would include 17 top-10 hits and 13 #1's, which included a streak of 10 chart toppers in-a-row.

In June of 2002, Keith made an appearance on the debut broadcast of good friend Jeff Jarrett's Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. After Jarrett interrupted a Keith performance of "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" on the show, Keith would enter the promotion's Gauntlet for the Gold, a battle royal which would name TNA's first ever heavyweight champion. Keith would eliminate Jarrett from the battle royal, a clip of which he still uses on the video screen at the start of his concerts. Keith would appear with TNA the following week, helping Scott Hall defeat Jarrett in match. Rumors persist today that Keith is the silent financial backing behind both Jarrett's current promotion Global Force Wrestling and an unnamed "entity" attempting to purchase Total NonStop Action.

After his DreamWorks commitment was completed, Keith decided to become his own boss. He founded Show Dog Records in 2005, and opened his first I Love This Bar and Grill in Oklahoma City. He then opened restaurants in Syracuse, NY and Tulsa, OK; he now owns restaurants in 13 cities, and has franchised the concept across the country.

He released his first album for the label in 2006. White Trash With Money featured three top-20 hits, "Get Drunk And Be Somebody", "A Little Too Late" and "Crash Here Tonight". He has released 10 studio albums, 1 movie soundtrack (Broken Bridges) and a greatest hits compilation covering his entire recording career for the label. The albums have produced 15 top-10 hits and 5 #1's.

Keith sold control of Show Dog to Universal Nashville in 2009, giving Universal day-to-day control over the label. In 2014, he repurchased the label, regaining control, while a distribution agreement remains in place between the label and Universal. Toby and daughter Krystal Keith remain the only two artists currently signed to the label.

Keith's 10th studio album for Show Dog, 35 MPH Town is scheduled for release in October. The second single from the album is in our spotlight today and it features Toby Keith, along with Jimmy Buffett's road band The Corral Reafer Band, channeling his inner Jimmy Buffett, with "Rum Is The Reason". It's today's Catch of the Day, new music you haven't heard, but you will want to hear it again.