Toby Keith photo courtesy of Show Dog Nashville.

Toby Keith’s new American Ride album is debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200.

But while the public thinks of Toby as a recording artist and entertainer, he’s also quite successful as a songwriter. In fact, on Sunday the Nashville Songwriters Association International will recognize him as the Songwriter/Artist of the Decade, and that honor is forefront in his mind at the moment.

“If I am ever in a position to be in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, it won’t mean any more than this,” Toby told LiveDaily.com. “Any award given to me by songwriters is the ultimate. That’s the apex of awards. The ultimate respect is being paid by the people who do what you do and they look at the body of work and go, ‘Here’s the guy with the most No. 1s in the decade, most spins as a writer. We’re going to recognize that.’ I’m completely at a loss for words to tell you how big it is to me.”

The writing is just one part of Toby’s business. He’s a restaurant chain owner, an actor and the founder of his own label. But as much as he appreciates songwriting, he doesn’t let his writer credits dictate his other moves. “American Ride,” his current single, was written by Joe West and Dave Pahanish — the same two guys that wrote Jimmy Wayne’s “Do You Believe Me Now” — and Toby chose to stop promoting the self-penned “Lost You Anyway” and concentrate on “American Ride.”

That move, based on the reaction from a handful of concerts in June, could never have happened if he didn’t own his own company, Toby believes.

“For 12 years, I was on major labels, and it was about every day that you had a little blow-up or a red flag or a cancer that had to be tended to,” he said. “You weren’t dressing right, or your album wasn’t quite up to par, or there’s too much rock or too much country. It was something all the time. ‘We need to ask a freebie of you.’ ‘We need you to go play at a radio station.’ None of that exists anymore. There is no way I could have pulled ‘Lost You’ and put out ‘American Ride’ at any other period in my career. It would have been pulling teeth .”

Toby’s album isn’t the only one making a strong debut this week, though he’s the only artist debuting in the Top 10 who owns his own label. Luke Bryan’s Doin’ My Thing kicks in at No. 2 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, and Rosanne Cash’s The List lands at No. 5.

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