Toby Keith Once Smoked With The Great Willie Nelson, & Once Was Enough: “Unlike Bill Clinton, I Did Inhale”

Man, still hard to believe that the Big Dog Daddy has gone on home. Country music icon, Toby Keith, passed away February of 2024 after a long battle with stomach cancer, and at the time, we all knew that TK had cancer, but I still think it came as a total shock to his fans and friends.

Nevertheless, his larger than life legacy lives on through his music, his charity, and hilarious stories like this one. Perhaps my all-time favorite Toby Keith story… the time he smoked with the great Willie Nelson.

It’s no secret that Willie Nelson is the definition of a weed connoisseur. We’re talking about a guy who famously smoked Snoop Dogg under the table (and that’s a direct quote from Snoop himself). And while he’s cut back quite a bit since, often resorting to nothing more than edibles these days, Willie is, always has been, and always will be a major advocate for smoking the devil’s lettuce. And he’s not too afraid to share either.

Of course, Toby Keith, has a song called “Weed With Willie” and it pretty much tells the story of how Toby got so toasted with the Red Headed Stranger one night, that he completely forgot how to function. And it’s completely a true story.

As the story goes, Keith was in Vegas for Charles Barkley’s birthday party. And while he was there, he jumped on on stage with Willie who was performing that night, and Willie asked him to stick around for a little while after the show.

Keith says:

“Charles Barkley said his birthday was starting at midnight at the Rumjungle, everything happens late in Vegas. Willie was playing 8 at the Hacienda… I go over and see Willie, get up and do a couple songs with him, he says ‘stay after the show, I want to talk to you for a bit.’ So we go on his bus.

Willie’s got that real chronic, medicinal stuff. I’ve never smoked much pot in my life, it’s not my high… we set down and he starts rolling one up, so when in Rome, you know? We burn one, and I couldn’t even function.

It was like, the most hardcore weed that I’d ever had, and I’d only hit it like three or four times, and unlike Bill Clinton I did inhale. I stood up and said ‘Man it’s time for me to go,’ he was just looking at me and I remember my ears were burning, my head’s throbbing, I was breathing different, and he was sitting there grinning at me.

He knew he got me right. I said I had to go and he says ‘Good timing.’ So I had a car take me to my room, I missed the whole Charles Barkley thing, I went down to sleep.”

So there you have it.

That’s the story of the night that Willie Nelson sent Toby Keith to Mars, causing him to miss Charles Barkley’s birthday and his first night off ever in Las Vegas. It would go on to spark the idea for the song “Weed With Willie.” Written by Toby alongside the great country music songwriter, Scotty Emerick, the tune was recorded as a live bonus track and featured on Toby’s 2008 Shock’n Y’all album.

Check out the full vconversation here:

“Weed With Willie”

They also teamed up for “Wacky Tobaccy”

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