Eric Church toured with Toby Keith in 2011 on the Locked & Loaded Tour, and he has a lot of stories about the Big Dog Daddy. The one he remembers most fondly is actually the first time he met him at a local Nashville bar.

“So, I have a thousand Toby Keith stories – some I can share and some not – but my first time I met Toby, we both frequented a bar in Printer’s Alley in Nashville called The Fiddle and Steel Guitar Bar,” recalls Eric. “And I remember walking in my first time and apparently some of the patrons had been harassing a bartender behind the bar and as I walked in, Toby had taken the guy harassing the patrons and had drug him by his shirt collar all the way down the bar. And as I walked in the door, the guy dropped in front of me, and I look up and there’s Toby Keith, and I kinda stuck out my hand and said, ‘Hi,’ and we met, you know. (laughs) Toby was always a guy that did things his own way, and I think of that (laughs), I think of that fondly now when I think of him. We got to be friends later and toured with him, but that’s how I met him. He laid a guy out at my feet at the Fiddle and Steel.”

Toby Keith (Covel) passed away on Monday night (February 5th) from his battle with stomach cancer. He announced his illness in June 2022 and revealed he’d been diagnosed in October 2021, and he had undergone radiation, surgery and chemotherapy. He was 62 years old.