Toby Keith Pours a Shot of Sentimentality in 'Tavern'
                                                   (www.theboot.com, Oct. 27, 2011)

















Toby Keith has previously paid tribute to his grandmother, Hilda Marie 'Clancy' Martin, in tunes like 'Honky Tonk U' and 'I Love This Bar.' The title track of his latest album, 'Clancy's Tavern,' released this week on Toby's Show Dog-Universal label, recalls a day in the life of the establishment which his grandmother purchased while a single mom in rural Arkansas.

The Oklahoma-born superstar is coming off his fastest-rising career single, 'Made in America,' his tour dates have been selling out, and his signature Wild Shot liquor has been named the top-selling mezcal in the U.S. What else can the 50-year-old do to top that? Plenty! His 'Red Solo Cup' video, which is both fun and bizarre at the same time, went viral two weeks ago and has now logged over one million views. The song, a tribute to the ubiquitous party cup, was penned by brothers Brett and Brad Warren, along with another pair of brothers, Brett and Jim Beavers.

Toby sat down to talk with The Boot about the songs on the new CD, where his confidence comes from and the country-music hero he invited on the road to write songs. The notoriously outspoken superstar also tells an eyebrow-raising story about how life imitated art with one of his classic hits, 'How Do You Like Me Now?'.


How did your grandmother come to be known as Clancy?

She got the name Clancy from my grandfather. She married right before I was born, and he named her Clancy because she ran the tavern. Her first husband died leaving her with three kids, all under the age of four. Her parents lived on Cactus Ridge in Booneville, Ark., and they raised my mom and her two brothers while she moved to Ft. Smith to be the plant manager at the Dixie Cup factory there. That was in the 1940s and early 1950s. She was the first woman plant manager there. She worked at this nightclub, Billy Garner's Supper Club, in the evenings, taking the cover charge from the folks who came in. When she had the opportunity to buy the place, she did. I would go stay with her and that was where I was bitten by the entertainment bug. The characters in the song are real. There was a black dude named Elmo who cooked in the kitchen, and her best friend, Lillie, took over her job of taking the cover charge. She was also a widow woman. It was closer to church than a bar because it was self-policed; there were no bouncers, and you would see the same faces in there every night. The song is true, down to her taking her pistol and money to the bank.

The timing of the album's first single, 'Made in America,' which recently hit No. 1, seems perfect.

The problem is when I do a song like this, people say, "Oh, that's another song about your dad." Well it's not really about my dad, it's about that generation. People come up to me and say, "That song is about my my old man"' So it's about that old man. My father had a lot of traits that were along this line, but it's about that generation, a better generation than we are. That generation lived in a less complicated world, where you could work on your vehicle with a wrench and WD-40 and bailing wire. You could see spark plugs sticking out of the block, and you could see the carburetor. Now you've got to have a tool to get to the spark plugs and you have to plug your car into a machine to see if it's sick. It's just a more complicated world.

What kind of things are you hearing your fans say about the state of our country?

I'm hearing people say it's time to start taking care of us first. We help everybody in the world, we police the world, we die for everyone in the world ... We are leaders of this planet, and we take care of everybody else first. Sometimes it's like the guy who's the dentist and his kids' teeth are bad because he's so busy taking care of everyone else's kids. Sometimes you neglect the ones closest to you, trying to conquer your goals and accomplish things.

People are extremely worried about the deficit and the economy. I think the terror fear is under control, because our intel is unbelievably good, which is why we haven't been hit again. We're listening and watching everything that everybody does. The number one worry is now we've funded all these wars and other countries and we're in hock up to our elbows and our credit is rating bad. Any government will spend and spend -- it doesn't matter what political party you are -- if you're not controlled and have budgets that you're held to. I don't know how to fix it, but I know we need to take care of ourselves first.

Your latest single, 'Red Solo Cup,' is one you didn't write, which is extremely rare for you. What was there about the song that made you say, "I've got to record that!"?

It's the only song I didn't write on the album. It is so stupid that it's good. We could play it in here, then play five other songs, give it an hour, walk out and you'd hear the receptionist going (singing), "Red solo cup!" It's like a nursery rhyme. When I went to record this time, I didn't have a bus song like 'Weed With Willie' or 'Get Out of Your Clothes or Get Out of My Car.' So I cut it, and it's getting so much attention. Now here's the problem: I'm afraid since it says 'testicles,' radio won't play it, but the video is all over the internet [and] has a bunch of celebrities in it. But radio wouldn't play 'Weed With Willie' and this is even more extreme. I had some radio guys tell me they'd play it, but I don't know.




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