We might get new Toby Keith music one day — that’s how you do it

With a songwriter as prolific as Toby Keith, it should come as no surprise that he still has music in the box.

In a new interview with Billboard, Jamey Johnson says he and Keith were in the middle of writing sessions when the singer died of stomach cancer in February 2024.

• Keith announced his stomach cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2022.
• He took most of the year off to undergo treatment, but returned to the stage to accept the Icon Award at the first ever People’s Choice Country Awards in September 2023.
• He gave an impassioned performance of “Don’t Let the Old Man In” at that show, and played a series of comeback shows to close out the year. His last show took place just a few months before his death.

“We were working on a song toward the end. I called him one night and shared a few lines with him and he added a few lines and we turned around and wrote this whole verse,” Johnson recalls.

“We laughed a lot,” he continues, “and it was one of those things where I was like, ‘This is great. There’s going to be a time when I go out to Oklahoma, or maybe he and I meet somewhere golf tournament, but we’ll have some time (to) sit down and wrap this up.”

Johnson knew Keith was sick. But he says he didn’t realize how close to death the great country really was.

“He always gave me the feeling that this was nothing. He would beat this: “Don’t worry about me, friend. I got this,” he recalls. “And it lasted right up until (the month he died).”

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Johnson says that when Keith’s died, he felt newfound motivation to release his own music. That was actually the driving force behind it Midnight petrolThe “In Color” singer’s first full-length release in 14 years, which drops on Friday (Nov. 8).

“When Toby passed away, it shifted everything into high gear because I realized it was the end of his discography, that we weren’t getting another Toby Keith record,” he explains. “And that’s what drove me to want to finish my own discography.

“That’s what made me understand that I’m nowhere near done, so it’s time to get busy,” he continues.

Johnson says there are still some unfinished Keith songs from the singer’s final writing sessions.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the songs now,” he says. “But I know some time will probably pass and I might break them out again and see them again later. But I think right now his friends that I would consider ending those songs with are still hurting, and it’s probably not time to start trying to do that yet.”