Blake Shelton Will Present Country Icon Award To Toby Keith
Blake Shelton will present his fellow Oklahoman Toby Keith with the “Country Icon Award” at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, which will take place in September at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House.
The award will honor Keith for “his decades-long career as a groundbreaking musician, humanitarian, and entrepreneur.” The honor will also recognize his career as a musician, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. Toby has scored 32 No.1 singles and has sold 40 million albums.
Early in his career, almost 20 years ago (2004), Blake toured and opened shows for Toby Keith nationwide. At the time, he told me, “Toby is one of those guys that is so famous and so big, and he is one of those artists that’s just worldwide. You don’t have to be a country music fan to be a Toby Keith fan. It’s just way bigger than that. I step on stage with over 20 thousand people per night, and 15,000 of them may or may not have ever heard of me. Touring with Toby has probably been the biggest break I’ve had since I started doing this.”
He added of the tour at the time, “We had stupid fun on the Toby tour; there’s no limit when you’re on a tour like that. Nobody ever said no to anything which was new to me. We both had our own basketball teams and played basketball close to every day of the tour.”
RELATED: NBC Announces The People's Choice Country Awards
As we reported late last month (June), Little Big Town is set to host the first-ever People’s Choice Country Awards, which will air live on NBC and Peacock from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House on September 28.
Jimi Westbrook, Kimberly Schlapman, Karen Fairchild, and Phillip Sweet will also perform a medley of their greatest hits as part of the two-hour celebration. All awards and honors will be chosen entirely by the fans across various categories.
The group said, “We are honored to host the inaugural ‘People’s Choice Country Awards,’ especially on one of our most beloved stages in the world. We look forward to welcoming so many of our talented peers to take the Opry stage for this magical night of music.”
Five Things Blake Shelton Told Me In 2011
His Rising Fame
Rick Diamond/Getty ImagesShelton said of fame hitting him ten years into his career as a country singer, “This is what I moved to town for. It is awesome, and it is mind-boggling to me that ten years into this, it’s happening. I can’t say that enough. I can’t believe that ten years into this, it’s now happening. And it makes it that much more gratifying to me because I can appreciate it. I’ve been through the struggles and the ups and downs and wondering if you’re ever gonna have a hit again. I know what this business is like.”
Blake's First Season On 'The Voice'
Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesBlake said after he committed to tour with Brad Paisley and then got the offer to be on The Voice, he was crazy busy. He told me he changed it up a bit when The Voice started to tape again: “With ‘The Voice’ starting again next month, I am not touring this fall. I think there are maybe four or five shows that were already on the books. I’m not going to do that to myself again, you know. There are things that I missed out on in Season One of ‘The Voice’ because I had to be gone. I don’t want to miss out on stuff and to get to know my team and get to know the other coaches more and spend more time with them. When you’re gone on your days off, you only have a working relationship with them, and that sucks.”
Lionel Richie
Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesShelton talked about recording a song with Lionel Richie for Richie’s 2012 Tuskegee album: “Recording with Lionel Richie, man, that was a rush. Man, how old is that guy? I hate to assume anything, but he’s too old to have as much energy as he has. I walked into the studio that day, and, normally, when you walk into a studio in Nashville, everyone’s laid back and telling jokes we’ve all heard fifty times. But when I walked into the studio that day, people were standing up and smiling, and there was a lot of chatter going on. And Lionel comes walking in, and there’s just a different energy in the room. He saw me and introduced himself, and thanked me fifty times for being there. I felt ridiculous with him thanking me.”
Reba
Michael Buckner/Getty ImagesBlake told me what Reba McEntire did for him early in his Nashville career: “The ACM announcements/ nominees three years ago (2009), way before they were asking me, host, she agreed to go, and Reba doesn’t do this; she agreed to be on CBS’ Early Morning Show to announce the nominees for the ACMs if they would let me be on there with her. Normally they send a couple of new baby acts to go do that because nobody wants to wake up that early and go do that, but Reba did that for me. If there’s ever a time she can lend a hand, she’s always been that for me.”
Poking Fun
Rick Diamond/Getty ImagesShelton said of his sense of humor and poking fun at many of his country music friends in the business: “It’s fun when you find somebody that you can talk trash to. I think fans love that. And if they take it seriously, they need to go listen to Jazz or something. Stop listening to country, because we don’t take ourselves that seriously. We have fun and say ridiculous stuff.”
