Toby Keith was remembered in a series of poignant tributes at the CMT Music Awards on Sunday night (07.04.24).
Toby Keith was remembered at the CMT Music Awards
The country music star died on February 5 at the age of 62 following a battle with stomach cancer and his friends and family attended the ceremony to raise a toast to him in red cups - a reference to his 2011 track 'Red Solo Cup' - in an emotional moment at the prizegiving at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas.
Former baseball star Roger Clemens led the toast, addressing Keith's three children - Krystal, Shelley and Stelen - as well as his wife Tricia Lucus, saying: "Thank you for sharing your dad with all of us. Thank you.
"Trish, we love you. Thank you for sharing your husband with the world, Trish. Thank you."
The onstage musical tributes came from Brooks and Dunn, who played Keith's 1993 hit 'Should've Been a Cowboy' while Sammy Hagar performed 'I Love This Bar' and told stories about holidays with his pal in Mexico.
Speaking about a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Sammy confessed: "Toby and I closed the Cabo Wabo [bar] down a lot more times than probably we even remember. It’s hard to get thrown out of your own bar, and we managed to do that."
Willie Nelson's son Lukas Nelson and Riley Green later introduced Lainey Wilson to the stage to perform Keith's 'How Do You Like Me Now?' with Riley saying of the late singer: "That guy could come up with a hook like no other and sing the hell out of every song that he wrote, somehow only making it look easy.
"Right now, we have one of our favourite artists to perform one of our favourite Toby songs."
During his career, Keith received 30 CMT nominations and won seven awards while he also co-hosted the show twice in 2003 with Pamela Anderson and in 2012 with Kristen Bell. He will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year.
The big winner at this year's ceremony was Jelly Roll, who took Video of the Year for 'Need a Favor' as well as Male Video of the Year and CMT Performance of the Year for the same song. Other winners included Lainey Wilson, who won Female Video of the Year for 'Watermelon Moonshine', Dan and Shay, who took Duo/Group Video of the Year for 'Save Me the Trouble' while Collaborative Video of the Year went to Carly Pearce and Chris Stapleton for 'We Don’t Fight Anymore'.
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