Launched on Could 17, 2005, the late Toby Keith’s ninth album Honkytonk College turns 20 this week. To mark the event, the traditional, platinum-selling album has been made obtainable in immersive Dolby Atmos, combined by preeminent engineer Mills Logan.
Concurrently, the movies for the album’s trio of nation hits – “Massive Blue Notice,” “Honkytonk U” and the No. 1 smash, “As Good As I As soon as Was” – have been remastered and might now be loved in HD. Hear and consider right here.
Because the latest TikTok surge of the album’s “As Good As I As soon as Was” illustrates, music lovers of all ages proceed to find and embrace Keith’s music. Twelve years into his profession, Honkytonk College sprung from a dialog round Keith’s assist for Oklahoma College. “I need my youngsters to go to OU, and I’m tight with among the individuals there,” Keith mentioned on the time. “Over the vacations any person requested me if I went there and I mentioned no … I graduated from the college of exhausting knocks. I went to Honkytonk U. It simply appeared like a title.”
Keith wrote that music by himself – as he did one different on the album (“She Left Me”) – and he’s credited on the opposite 10 songs as properly. Frequent collaborators Scotty Emerick and Dean Dillon share co-writing credit, and Keith produced the album with DreamWorks/Nashville head James Stroud.
The aforementioned “Massive Blue Notice,” written with Emerick, is considered one of a number of standouts. “I’ve by no means written something fairly prefer it,” Keith mentioned. “It’s simply a type of issues that occurs to you as a songwriter. You’re going to write down sufficient of them that one’s going to finish up psychedelic.”
Concerning “As Good As I As soon as Was,” which went on to be a six-week No. 1, 3x platinum, and was BMI’s “Tune of the 12 months” for 2006, Keith known as it, “Most likely my favourite music on the album. I can all the time inform once I’ve bought a particular one as quickly as I get accomplished.”
That predictive potential seemingly comes from incomes a doctorate at Honkytonk U.