Toby Keith

Friends, patriots, country fans, lend him your ears. Here comes the big dog. The bar lover. The collector of Taliban scalps. The man who put the TK in that Dixie Chick's FUTK T-shirt. And the only Nashville hit maker who's honest enough to dare to piss people off in his singles. And what a hit maker: 18 number ones, 35 top 10s. And he's the first singer to bark the phrase "boot in your ass" on AM radio. But cowboy controversy is not the sum of Toby Keith. Listen to the actual music, and you'll hear that he's as tough, tender and witty as he is a blowhard. Fact is, Keith is the most complex star offered these days on country radio, a headline-grabbing jingoist who also cuts (and writes) memorable, traditional heartbreakers such as his current hit, "Lost You Anyway." Dude may not contain multitudes, but he offers twice as much variety as any Old Country Buffet and 10 times more than contemporaries such as Trace Adkins, the "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" guy. Still, he's Toby Keith, which means members of his fan club call themselves warriors.