Welcome to the New York Times

your Shining Blue Moon of music music criticism.

I am your host, John Caramonica.

She said I seen you in here before. I said I've been here a time or two.

She said hello my name is Bobby Joe.

If you know that song coming at the top, first of all we were listening to as good as I once was that is Toby Keith.

We are talking about Toby and Toby passed away.

A couple weeks ago, he'd been suffering

from stomach cancer for a couple years.

Toby Keith was a very prominent figure

in country music, particularly in the late 90s into the mid 2000s.

Toby was also, for some, a very problematic figure in terms of how he leaned into to

jingoism and other things during that time period. But Toby Keith had a very long career and one thing that I'm hoping to do in this episode is talk about that challenging time period but also contextualize it as part of a larger conversation

about his particular stripe of masculinity and masculine expression in country.

There was a lot of writing about Toby in the wake of his passing a lot of it very focused on his political

You can say ideology or at least expression especially during the post 9-11 period

But again there was a lot more to Toby and I wanted to get into that

with someone who has been writing about country music for a very long time and sees the big picture.

So David Cantwell is here. David, first time on popcast. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. So David recently wrote a

very good book about Haggard. I am also and I held this up to you before I am

very up on this book which is heartaches by the number country music's 500

greatest singles also this little pamphlet on George Strait, which I have not yet read, but I'm

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