It took six years for Toby Keith to finally learn how his father really died on that Oklahoma highway and by then that private grief had already fueled one of the most debated patriotic songs in modern country music.
On March 24, 2001, Hubert βH.K.β Covel Jr. was driving along Interstate 35 in Oklahoma when his pickup crossed the median and slammed into a charter bus. He was killed at the scene.
Long before his son became a star, H.K. had served in the Army where an injury cost him the sight in his right eye. He then spent 35 years in the Oklahoma oil fields and worked his way from hard physical labor into management without ever earning a college degree.
Toby grew up watching that climb up close. He saw a man who carried the American flag with deep working class pride and he carried those lessons into his own songs again and again.
Behind the flag and the fame was a father who taught his son toughness and humor and a work ethic that never quit.
At first the family thought a medical emergency had made H.K. veer across the highway. It felt like a sudden tragedy with no deeper story left to uncover and Toby was left mourning the man he credited for so much of who he became.
Five months later the attacks of September 11 changed everything about how that loss felt. The grief was still fresh when America was struck in New York and Washington and the anger of that moment poured straight into Toby through his memories of his father and his service.
For years H.K. had urged his son to join USO tours and spend time with American troops. Toby had always pushed back because his calendar was packed with roughly 130 shows a year and there never seemed to be room to breathe.
After losing his father and watching the country reel from the attacks, he could no longer set that request aside. He started visiting the troops and he poured his pain and his pride into Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).
He first wrote the song mainly for military audiences with no grand plan for radio. When he finally released it in 2002 it soared to become his ninth No. 1 country single and sparked a fierce national debate that followed him for years.
Then the story of the crash itself began to change. Evidence later showed that his pickup had been struck by another vehicle first and that the charter bus involved had been on the road despite an urgent brake problem that should have stopped it.
In 2007 a jury awarded Toby and his mother and his siblings $2.8 million and made clear that H.K. was not at fault for the crash that took his life.
By then the father who once begged his son to stand with the troops had already become the quiet heart behind a song the whole country argued about. For the Covel family the real story was never just about a hit record. It was about spending six long years fighting to uncover the truth about how H.K. Covel was taken from them.