When Toby Keith passed away on February 5 after a tumultuous battle with stomach cancer, country music lovers all across the globe — as well as other artists and industry professionals — honored the “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” singer. With a great deal of tributes that tugged on our heartstrings, as well as a posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the country music community continues to mourn the loss of this legendary singer/songwriter, with a tribute to the late Toby Keith making its way into the 2024 CMT Music Awards tonight (April 7).
Ahead of this performance, executive producer John Hamlin talked about Keith’s impact on CMT as a whole throughout his illustrious career, gushing in an interview with Variety, “Toby’s had a very important relationship with this brand and this channel for 20 years now, He never mailed it in on music videos — they were always clever, funny, [and] memorable on almost every occasion. The CMT Music Awards is honoring music videos to this day, and he’s an icon to this brand, so he will be greatly missed for sure.”
After host Kelsea Ballerini brought the house down with a performance of her own, Brooks & Dunn, Sammy Hagar and Lainey Wilson took the stage at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas to deliver performances to honor the late Toby Keith — performing “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” “I Love This Bar” and “How Do You Like Me Now?” respectively — each backed by the “I Love This Bar” singer’s longtime band.
The first performance came from legendary country duo Brooks & Dunn, consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who took the stage in classic country outfits to perform a rendition of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” With vintage TVs in the background playing some iconic Toby Keith videos, the performance had the whole crowd on their feet from start to finish, all while simultaneously shedding a few tears.
Aside from this tear-jerking tribute, an hour-long television special titled “CMT Music Awards Celebrates Toby Keith” will premiere at 10pm ET/PT on April 11 on CMT, and it is sure to be equally as spectacular.
In the same interview with Variety, fellow producer Margaret Comeaux shared what this additional programming will consist of: “As John talked about the importance of Toby to the channel over the years, we wanted to find a way to further honor him, so we went back to the archives of the CMT Music Awards — him doing 11 performances and hosting it twice and multiple times he won… As much as it’s gonna be fantastic to hear people sing his songs to honor his memory, this will be a nice way for us to go back and actually hear Toby singing those songs.”