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THEY MET OVER LUNCH IN 1990 BECAUSE A RECORD EXECUTIVE ARRANGED IT. NEITHER MAN WANTED TO BE THERE. BOTH WERE NEAR FORTY, BOTH HAD ALREADY FAILED AS SOLO ARTISTS, AND NEITHER HAD ANY INTEREST IN SHARING A NAME WITH A STRANGER. Kix Brooks remembered the reaction plainly: “We don’t wanna do this. We don’t know each other.” Tim DuBois, then head of Arista Nashville, pushed anyway. He was not asking them to sing together. He was asking them to write together. The first song they finished was “Brand New Man.” What followed was more than thirty million records sold and fourteen CMA trophies for Vocal Duo of the Year — every year from 1992 through 2006 except one. Then, in August 2009, they announced they were finished. And the way they closed it made the whole twenty years look like it had been shaped that first afternoon. On September 2, 2010, at a sold-out Bridgestone Arena, Brooks & Dunn ended the encore with “Brand New Man” — the first song they ever sang together. Proceeds from the night went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Nine years later, the Hall of Fame inducted them.

How Brooks & Dunn Turned an Awkward Lunch Into Country Music History

It began with a lunch neither man wanted to attend.

In 1990, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn were both hovering near forty, both trying to regroup after solo careers that had not broken through the way they hoped. Tim DuBois, then the head of Arista Nashville, believed the two men had something to offer each other as songwriters, so he arranged a meeting and pushed them toward the same table. Kix Brooks later remembered the mood plainly: neither one was eager, and neither one had any interest in being paired off with a stranger.

That first conversation could have ended there. Instead, it turned into the beginning of one of country music’s most durable partnerships. DuBois was not asking them to become a duet act overnight. He was asking them to write. That distinction mattered, because both artists arrived with their own identities, their own doubts, and their own pride. But the assignment gave them something practical to do together, and that made the whole thing feel less like a forced match and more like a challenge.

The first song they completed was “Brand New Man.” It was a title that fit them almost too well. The song became their debut single, and the chemistry in that first writing session helped define the sound Brooks & Dunn would carry into the 1990s and beyond. What started as reluctance became momentum, and momentum became a career that reshaped modern country radio.

Brooks & Dunn went on to become one of the best-selling duos in country music history, with more than thirty million records sold and a long run of awards that reflected both popularity and staying power. From 1992 through 2006, they won Vocal Duo of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards fourteen times, missing only one year in that stretch. For a pair that almost refused the first meeting, the run was extraordinary.

Then, in August 2009, they announced they were done. The news carried a quiet shock, because the duo had become so familiar that the idea of an ending felt unnatural. Yet the farewell was handled in a way that made sense for Brooks & Dunn: direct, professional, and rooted in the music that started it all.

On September 2, 2010, at a sold-out Bridgestone Arena, Brooks & Dunn closed their encore with “Brand New Man”. The choice felt symbolic without needing to say so aloud. The first song they ever wrote together also became the song that helped close the chapter. Proceeds from the night went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, tying the farewell to the institution that would later honor them. In 2019, Brooks & Dunn were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, completing a story that had begun with two reluctant strangers at lunch and ended with their place in country music history secured.

Sometimes the biggest career change begins with the smallest possible yes.

For Brooks & Dunn, that yes was not immediate, not comfortable, and not even especially enthusiastic. But it changed everything.

 

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RCA SHIPPED HIS FIRST TWO SINGLES WITH NO PHOTO ON THE SLEEVE. NOT AN OVERSIGHT. NOT A BUDGET CUT. IN 1966, A NASHVILLE LABEL DECIDED COUNTRY RADIO SHOULD NOT SEE CHARLEY PRIDE’S FACE BEFORE IT HEARD HIS VOICE. He was a sharecropper’s son from Sledge, Mississippi. He had pitched in the Negro American League and worked a Montana smelter, singing fifteen minutes before semi-pro ball games to earn a little extra. Chet Atkins signed him to RCA in late 1965. Pride did not object. Years later he put it plainly: “When the record company decided to hide my color, I thought it was a good idea.” The arrangement worked on radio. It could not survive a stage. At Olympia Stadium in Detroit — the biggest show of his career to that point — the applause that greeted his introduction died the second he walked out. He answered it himself, telling the room he knew it was a little unique, him coming out there wearing a permanent tan. Then he sang, and the applause came back. He went on to become RCA’s best-selling artist after Elvis Presley, with 70 million records sold. Nashville put him in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000 — thirty-four years after deciding his picture might cost him airplay.

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IN 2022, TOBY KEITH LET ANTI-TURNPIKE ACTIVISTS HANG THEIR BANNER ON HIS NORMAN PROPERTY. THAT SAME ROAD NOW CARRIES HIS NAME. Keith spent his final years opposed to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s ACCESS Oklahoma plan, which cuts a new east-west connector through Cleveland County and displaced neighbors his family knew. In February 2026, both chambers of the Legislature unanimously adopted House Concurrent Resolution 1019 and named that road the Toby Keith Expressway, the first turnpike in the authority’s nearly 80-year history named by lawmakers instead of by the authority. Norman resident Dave Moore told News 4 it landed like a slap in the face. Lawmakers reached for the name because of everything else. Keith started touring with the USO in 2002 and reached more than 250,000 service members. His foundation opened OK Kids Korral in 2014, free housing for families whose children are being treated for cancer in Oklahoma City. His son Stelen told the turnpike board his father had changed course near the end — “He was for the turnpike before his passing.” On March 3, Tricia, Krystal, Shelley and Stelen stood holding the new sign while the room raised red Solo cups. Tricia did not pretend it was simple. “It’s a bittersweet, you know, for our friends and families that were displaced,” she said.

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HE CALLED IT A COMEDY. A NETWORK INTERVIEWER TOLD HIM TO HIS FACE THAT IT WAS A STEREOTYPE. Toby Keith described “The Taliban Song” to CBS as a funny song about a peace-loving Afghan man trying to get out while Taliban television told everyone to stay calm. Critics heard the camel jokes and the cave and the broad picture of Afghan life, and argued that the humor had swallowed an entire culture along with its target. In an America still carrying the fear of September 11, that argument had teeth on both sides. He and Scotty Emerick had written it in a Palm Springs bungalow at two in the morning, not long after the attacks, watching American forces move into Afghanistan on the news. It landed on Shock’n Y’all in November 2003 as a live cut and was never sent to radio. Asked to defend it, Toby didn’t retreat an inch. Casting a Western, he said, you put the cowboy on a horse and not a llama, because you have to paint a picture people recognize. Then the line he kept returning to: he was with “the little guy trying to get out of there,” not against him. Both halves of that argument are still sitting inside the same three minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

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THEY MET OVER LUNCH IN 1990 BECAUSE A RECORD EXECUTIVE ARRANGED IT. NEITHER MAN WANTED TO BE THERE. BOTH WERE NEAR FORTY, BOTH HAD ALREADY FAILED AS SOLO ARTISTS, AND NEITHER HAD ANY INTEREST IN SHARING A NAME WITH A STRANGER. Kix Brooks remembered the reaction plainly: “We don’t wanna do this. We don’t know each other.” Tim DuBois, then head of Arista Nashville, pushed anyway. He was not asking them to sing together. He was asking them to write together. The first song they finished was “Brand New Man.” What followed was more than thirty million records sold and fourteen CMA trophies for Vocal Duo of the Year — every year from 1992 through 2006 except one. Then, in August 2009, they announced they were finished. And the way they closed it made the whole twenty years look like it had been shaped that first afternoon. On September 2, 2010, at a sold-out Bridgestone Arena, Brooks & Dunn ended the encore with “Brand New Man” — the first song they ever sang together. Proceeds from the night went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Nine years later, the Hall of Fame inducted them.

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RCA SHIPPED HIS FIRST TWO SINGLES WITH NO PHOTO ON THE SLEEVE. NOT AN OVERSIGHT. NOT A BUDGET CUT. IN 1966, A NASHVILLE LABEL DECIDED COUNTRY RADIO SHOULD NOT SEE CHARLEY PRIDE’S FACE BEFORE IT HEARD HIS VOICE. He was a sharecropper’s son from Sledge, Mississippi. He had pitched in the Negro American League and worked a Montana smelter, singing fifteen minutes before semi-pro ball games to earn a little extra. Chet Atkins signed him to RCA in late 1965. Pride did not object. Years later he put it plainly: “When the record company decided to hide my color, I thought it was a good idea.” The arrangement worked on radio. It could not survive a stage. At Olympia Stadium in Detroit — the biggest show of his career to that point — the applause that greeted his introduction died the second he walked out. He answered it himself, telling the room he knew it was a little unique, him coming out there wearing a permanent tan. Then he sang, and the applause came back. He went on to become RCA’s best-selling artist after Elvis Presley, with 70 million records sold. Nashville put him in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000 — thirty-four years after deciding his picture might cost him airplay.

Uncategorized

IN 2022, TOBY KEITH LET ANTI-TURNPIKE ACTIVISTS HANG THEIR BANNER ON HIS NORMAN PROPERTY. THAT SAME ROAD NOW CARRIES HIS NAME. Keith spent his final years opposed to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s ACCESS Oklahoma plan, which cuts a new east-west connector through Cleveland County and displaced neighbors his family knew. In February 2026, both chambers of the Legislature unanimously adopted House Concurrent Resolution 1019 and named that road the Toby Keith Expressway, the first turnpike in the authority’s nearly 80-year history named by lawmakers instead of by the authority. Norman resident Dave Moore told News 4 it landed like a slap in the face. Lawmakers reached for the name because of everything else. Keith started touring with the USO in 2002 and reached more than 250,000 service members. His foundation opened OK Kids Korral in 2014, free housing for families whose children are being treated for cancer in Oklahoma City. His son Stelen told the turnpike board his father had changed course near the end — “He was for the turnpike before his passing.” On March 3, Tricia, Krystal, Shelley and Stelen stood holding the new sign while the room raised red Solo cups. Tricia did not pretend it was simple. “It’s a bittersweet, you know, for our friends and families that were displaced,” she said.

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HE CALLED IT A COMEDY. A NETWORK INTERVIEWER TOLD HIM TO HIS FACE THAT IT WAS A STEREOTYPE. Toby Keith described “The Taliban Song” to CBS as a funny song about a peace-loving Afghan man trying to get out while Taliban television told everyone to stay calm. Critics heard the camel jokes and the cave and the broad picture of Afghan life, and argued that the humor had swallowed an entire culture along with its target. In an America still carrying the fear of September 11, that argument had teeth on both sides. He and Scotty Emerick had written it in a Palm Springs bungalow at two in the morning, not long after the attacks, watching American forces move into Afghanistan on the news. It landed on Shock’n Y’all in November 2003 as a live cut and was never sent to radio. Asked to defend it, Toby didn’t retreat an inch. Casting a Western, he said, you put the cowboy on a horse and not a llama, because you have to paint a picture people recognize. Then the line he kept returning to: he was with “the little guy trying to get out of there,” not against him. Both halves of that argument are still sitting inside the same three minutes and fifty-eight seconds.