Toby is second only to Conway in my country music loving heart, and while I missed a good portion of Conway's career before I was born, I've been a Toby fan from day one. Ironically, Toby hit #1 on the charts for the very first time with Should've Been a Cowboy on the very day Conway died in 1993. And just like Conway, he was taken from us far, far too young.
While I never got to see Conway live, I was able to see Toby FOUR times at our local fair, in 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2013. I've attended a good number of concerts in my life, and I saw Toby more times than anyone. He was absolutely incredible, and I'm so very thankful to have my memories of his concerts.
Champlain Valley Fair, Essex Junction, VT, 9/1/13
And in 2013 I had adopted Truffles less than 2 weeks before the concert and I hadn't left her for any length of time yet. My mom stayed with her and said she was a furry basket case without me. Truffles was a very vocal tortie, and she cried and cried for me.
On a funny note, dad went with me that year, and after the concert we lost the car in the fairgrounds parking lot. We must've walked for miles, back and forth, back and forth, trying to find it. We even passed Toby's tour bus a number of times! He didn't invite us in to rest our legs. He probably thought we were stalkers.
Toby's loss has hit me tremendously hard. I've been streaming Prime Country's Toby Radio nearly nonstop for the past week and hate to see it end. I've never seen country radio play an artist exclusively for so long following their passing, which goes to show the icon he was.
In honor of this week's Mewsic Moves Me blog hop theme of love songs, here are a few of my favorite Toby love songs...
