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Keith, a muscular singer-songwriter with piercing blue eyes and an Oklahoma accent, cultivated a persona as “the big, bad outlaw hiding a big, tender heart,” as music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine puts it. once put. He could be irritable, cantankerous, self-deprecating and sensitive, recording sad ballads about heartbreak and desire, as well as festive songs about raising hell, drinking whiskey out of a paper cup and getting high with his friend Willie Nelson.
His greatest crossover success, “Red Solo Cup” (2011), was an endearingly ridiculous ode to the humble plastic drinking container, “the ultimate receptacle for barbecues, tailgates, fairs and festivals,” that was sung in an almost drunken murmur and peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. .
Mr. Keith also saluted the flag and troops on hits such as “Courtesy of Red, White and Blue (The Angry American”) (2002), a morale-boosting track after 9/11 that generated controversy over its jingoistic lyrics, and “Made in America” (2011), a celebration of buying American-made products and raising children in “King James and Uncle Sam.”
That combination of flag-waving patriotism and beer-soaked good humor helped make him one of country music’s biggest stars, with 42 Top 10 hits on the genre’s Billboard chart, including 20 No. 1s. By the end of the decade By 2000, he was earning nearly $50 million a year, helped by business ventures that included a restaurant chain, a liquor brand, a Nashville record label and a stake in Big Machine Records, the label that signed Taylor Swift.