Toby Keith

Toby Keith, Lady Antebellum and the Zac Brown Band will anchor the 2013 edition of the country-focused Stagecoach festival, which once again will be held over three late April days at the Empire Polo Grounds in the desert city of Indio. Now in its seventh year, the Goldenvoice-produced festival takes a wide-open view of roots music, booking contemporary Nashville acts alongside legends and newcomers.  The event will take place April 26-28, the weekend directly following next year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many hats in an audience before," said Norah Jones to a crowd taking in her performance Friday night at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio. The sight of tens of thousands of cowboy hats may have given the three-day hoedown a certain visual uniformity, but the 48 acts it featured across several stages were anything but unified in their approach toward country music. The festival, which took place on the grounds of the Empire Polo Club where the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival had been earlier in the month, featured everything from Lady Antebellum's polished balladry to the bumptious honky-tonk of Hank Williams Jr. to the roots music of Justin Townes Earle.

This post has been updated. See note below for details. Toby Keith understands honky-tonk life and all its nuances as well as any musician working today, even the parts in which nuance don't figure into the equation. The Oklahoma country singer and songwriter who's reached the top of the country charts with such quaff-minded odes as "Beer for My Horses," "Whiskey Girl" and "I Love This Bar" clearly hasn't exhausted that wellspring of musical inspiration yet, returning to the corner watering hole several times in the 10 new songs on "Hope on the Rocks.

INDIO -- Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" blared over the main-stage loudspeakers before Trace Adkins' performance Friday evening at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival, and that song title turned out to be a portent for what was to come. With back-to-back sets by Adkins, Hank Williams Jr. and headliner Toby Keith, Stagecoach on opening night felt like an old-fashioned guys' club full of gun talk, sex jokes and plenty of songs about trucks and booze. "Who's your daddy, who's your baby?"

In returning near Hollywood, the Breeders' Cup has embraced the magnet of celebrity by starting an “ambassadors program.” The inaugural group includes former Dodgers manager Joe Torre, actress Bo Derek, pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, sports talk host Jim Rome, singer Toby Keith and University of Louisville basketball Coach Rick Pitino. The group, joined by celebrity cook Bobby Flay, actress Elizabeth Banks, actress/singer Laura Bell Bundy and New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker, will serve as spokespersons for the Nov. 2-3 event at Santa Anita Park and help with promotion.

INDIO -- Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" blared over the main-stage loudspeakers before Trace Adkins' performance Friday evening at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival, and that song title turned out to be a portent for what was to come. With back-to-back sets by Adkins, Hank Williams Jr. and headliner Toby Keith, Stagecoach on opening night felt like an old-fashioned guys' club full of gun talk, sex jokes and plenty of songs about trucks and booze. "Who's your daddy, who's your baby?"

Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith have snagged the first trophies in the 46th Country Music Assn. Awards ceremony that's now under way in Nashville. The show will be tape delayed for West Coast viewing until 8 p.m. The first pre-telecast awards have gone out to Chesney and McGraw in the musical event category for their collaboration on “Feel Like a Rock Star” from Chesney's latest album “Welcome To the Fishbowl.” Keith took the music video award for his “Red Solo Cup,” an ode to the ubiquitous beverage container.

Country singer Toby Keith, his mother and his siblings have been awarded $2.8 million in damages in the 2001 collision that killed the country music star's father. A jury returned the verdict against Elias Rodriguez and Pedro Rodriguez, operators of Rodriguez Transportes of Tulsa, Okla., and the Republic Western Insurance Co. According to evidence presented at trial, a charter bus owned by the Rodriguezes was "in urgent need" of brake repairs before H.K.

I gather Toby Keith wants people to realize that he is a complex, thoughtful man struggling with the issues of the day, as he tries to "do the math" on the war in Iraq ("The Less Angry American," by Geoff Boucher, Aug. 26). If so, why did he write and record his jingoistic anthem, appealing to the lowest common denominators of the American psyche: aggressive, violent, reactionary machismo? Why did he get into a vulgar, public feud with an artist (Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks)

Toby Keith took home three awards in Country Music Television's Flameworthy Video Music Awards show, including video of the year for his patriotic song "American Soldier." The video for Keith and Willie Nelson's hit duet "Beer for My Horses" won in the collaborative video and director of the year categories. Dolly Parton hosted the fan-voted annual awards show Wednesday night, which included performances by Keith, Parton, Alison Krauss, Sheryl Crow, Alan Jackson and Keith Urban.

Regular viewers of “The Colbert Report” know that when musical guests drop by the show, Stephen Colbert isn't content to sit there asking question: He likes to sing along. In recent months Colbert has performed alongside Bonnie Raitt, Placido Domingo, Toby Keith, Harry Belafonte and Elvis Costello, to name just a few. So when country legend Dolly Parton sat down for a chat with Colbert to plug her new book, “Dream More,” it was all but inevitable they'd sing a duet.

Click here to download TV listings for the week Nov. 4 - 10 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     CBS This Morning Oliver Stone ; Kevin Systrom; Mike Huckabee . (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Bradley Cooper ; One Direction performs. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America Sally Field . (N) 7 a.m. KABC Live With Kelly and Michael Bradley Cooper; Jason Cameron ("Man Caves"). (N) 9 a.m. KABC The View Rachael Ray and her husband, John Cusimano.

Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith have snagged the first trophies in the 46th Country Music Assn. Awards ceremony that's now under way in Nashville. The show will be tape delayed for West Coast viewing until 8 p.m. The first pre-telecast awards have gone out to Chesney and McGraw in the musical event category for their collaboration on “Feel Like a Rock Star” from Chesney's latest album “Welcome To the Fishbowl.” Keith took the music video award for his “Red Solo Cup,” an ode to the ubiquitous beverage container.

This post has been updated. See note below for details. Toby Keith understands honky-tonk life and all its nuances as well as any musician working today, even the parts in which nuance don't figure into the equation. The Oklahoma country singer and songwriter who's reached the top of the country charts with such quaff-minded odes as "Beer for My Horses," "Whiskey Girl" and "I Love This Bar" clearly hasn't exhausted that wellspring of musical inspiration yet, returning to the corner watering hole several times in the 10 new songs on "Hope on the Rocks.

In returning near Hollywood, the Breeders' Cup has embraced the magnet of celebrity by starting an “ambassadors program.” The inaugural group includes former Dodgers manager Joe Torre, actress Bo Derek, pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek, sports talk host Jim Rome, singer Toby Keith and University of Louisville basketball Coach Rick Pitino. The group, joined by celebrity cook Bobby Flay, actress Elizabeth Banks, actress/singer Laura Bell Bundy and New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker, will serve as spokespersons for the Nov. 2-3 event at Santa Anita Park and help with promotion.

If you live in Ohio, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are giving you a lot of love. But if you reside in California or Alabama, you may feel neglected and ignored by the candidates for president. Like parents in a big, noisy family, all their attention goes to the troublesome kids, not the compliant, quiet ones. There has never been much doubt that states such as California, New York, Massachusetts and Washington would give their electoral votes to the president, and no doubt that Romney could depend on states such as Alabama, South Carolina, Texas and South Dakota to be solidly in his camp.

Toby Keith was a quadruple winner at Wednesday night's annual Academy of Country Music awards as entertainer of the year and male vocalist, and for his album "Shock 'n Y'All" and the video "Beer for My Horses" with Willie Nelson. "I always kept hoping this night would come," he said as he picked up the night's biggest award. Keith, who had won three times before, was named entertainer of the year in 2003.

Toby Keith, Lady Antebellum and the Zac Brown Band will anchor the 2013 edition of the country-focused Stagecoach festival, which once again will be held over three late April days at the Empire Polo Grounds in the desert city of Indio. Now in its seventh year, the Goldenvoice-produced festival takes a wide-open view of roots music, booking contemporary Nashville acts alongside legends and newcomers.  The event will take place April 26-28, the weekend directly following next year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

One of the most electrifying moments at this year's Stagecoach country music festival had nothing to do with the high-wattage, big-budget stage productions that accompanied performances by the event's main attractions, Toby Keith, Keith Urban, Brooks & Dunn and Sugarland. In fact, it came as the result of a technological breakdown. Inside a tent with the noontime sun blazing above, Louisiana singer and songwriter Mary Gauthier was in the middle of a song from her new album, "The Foundling," when a loud pop was heard over the PA, and then the sound system died.