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But in an era of unsurpassed polarization, Keith’s willingness to play any gig he can justify as patriotic is newly fraught: Whether he intended to or not, he’s chosen a side. In the past, this was not such a controversial position for a country singer to hold. But Keith is registered as an independent, and explains his stance on ceremonial shows with the straightforward logic of duty: If “the president of the frickin’ United States asks you to do something and you can go, you should go instead of being a jack-off.” Arguably no major entertainer is more associated with the Trump administration than he is, having headlined the president’s inauguration-eve “Make America Great Again” concert, an event that other stars, even conservative ones, sat out. The flap was merely the latest in Keith’s long career as one of the most prominent, if professedly reluctant, political figures in contemporary music.
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“Who am I to tell them how to run their country?” “My job was to represent the West and to reach out,” Keith told me, noting that the concert’s very existence represented an easing of religious extremism. What were such strident defenders of America, Trump and Keith both, doing fraternizing with a regime that has been accused of supporting the 9/11 attackers? It’s certainly not obvious why a supposed advocate of liberty, justice, and the inalienable right to sleep with twins would perform at a concert one gender had been forbidden to attend. Keith’s lyrics have long trucked in a mix of nostalgia, bellicosity, tribalism, and America-first priorities.īack home, Keith’s concert was nevertheless rolled into the debate over the propriety of Trump’s trip.
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Keith said he hadn’t known that his visit would coincide with Trump’s, and stressed that their paths never crossed, neither during the president’s speech in favor of a more moderate Islam nor during his communion with a large, glowing orb.
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According to press reports, their golf cart briefly slowed so the heads of state could take in the concert on a jumbo TV screen. While Keith was engaged in this act of cultural exchange, Donald Trump was a few miles away with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, shuttling between stops on his first official trip abroad. “They clapped and boogied and stomped their feet.” In videos, you can see the all-male audience in white robes and checkered red-and-white head coverings waving their phones like Bic lighters to Keith’s heartbreak ballad “Does That Blue Moon Ever Shine on You.” “They were friendly,” Keith said of the Saudis. Billed as a night of “Arabian Lute & American Guitar,” the event paired Keith with the oud-playing Saudi superstar Rabeh Saqer. At the invitation of the royal court, Keith was the first Westerner to be booked. But, looking to diversify its economy as oil revenues decline, the country recently relaxed its decades-long de facto ban on live music. Until this year, even so tasteful a show would likely have been forbidden in the notoriously conservative kingdom. Keith soldiered on with his less racy hits, filling out the set list with rock and soul standards. “There were only four or five things that I could play that were famous.” “It kind of knocked me down,” he recalled when I met him a few months later in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Complying was no simple task for the author of such sloshed-and-horny classics as “I Love This Bar” and “As Good as I Once Was,” the latter a song in which Keith is propositioned by twin sisters.
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W hen the country star Toby Keith flew to Riyadh in May to play one of the first public concerts held in Saudi Arabia since the early 1990s, he was given strict instructions: no songs about drinking, marijuana, or sex.