Honkytonk University is an album by country music singer Toby Keith, released in 2005. The album has been certified 2× Multi-Platinum for sales of in excess of 2 million units.

"Honkytonk U" was the first single to be released from the album, breaking the country top 10. "As Good as I Once Was" was the album's biggest hit, topping the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for six weeks. Due to the closure of DreamWorks shortly afterwards, however, "Big Blue Note" was released on Keith's Show Dog Nashville label, going on to peak at #5.

All songs written by Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick except where noted.

Toby Keith Covel (born July 8, 1961) best known as Toby Keith, is an American country music singer-songwriter, record producer and actor. Keith released his first four studio albums — 1993's Toby Keith, 1994's Boomtown, 1996's Blue Moon and 1997's Dream Walkin', plus a Greatest Hits package for various divisions of Mercury Records before leaving Mercury in 1998. These albums all earned gold or higher certification, and produced several chart singles, including his debut "Should've Been a Cowboy", which topped the country charts and was the most played country song of the 1990s. The song has received three million spins since then, according to Broadcast Music Incorporated.

Signed to Nashville DreamWorks in 1998, Keith released his breakthrough single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" that year. This song, the title track to his 1999 album of the same name, was the Number One country song of 2000, and one of several chart-toppers during his tenure on DreamWorks Nashville. His next three albums, Pull My Chain, Unleashed, and Shock'n Y'all, produced three more Number Ones each, and all of the albums were certified multi-platinum. A second Greatest Hits package followed in 2004, and after that, he released Honkytonk University.

Merle Ronald Haggard (born April 6, 1937) is an American country music song writer, singer, guitarist, fiddler and instrumentalist. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster and the unique mix with the traditional country steel guitar sound, new vocal harmony styles in which the words are minimal, and a rough edge not heard on the more polished Nashville Sound recordings of the same era.

By the 1970s, Haggard was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s. In 1997, Merle Haggard was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

Merle Haggard was born in Oildale, California, in 1937. His parents, James Francis and Flossie Mae (née Harp) Haggard, moved from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. At that time, much of the population of Bakersfield consisted of migrant workers from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Haggard spent his childhood in Oildale, a hardscrabble suburb of Bakersfield home to many workers in the adjacent Kern River Oil Field. His maternal grandmother, Martha Arizona Belle "Zona" Villines Harp (1881-1971), is the subject of his 1972 hit "Grandma Harp."

Johannes Abraham (Johan) de Meij (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjohɑn dʏ ˈmɛi], born November 23, 1953, Voorburg) is a Dutch conductor, trombonist, and composer, best known for his Symphony No. 1, nicknamed "The Lord of the Rings" symphony.

Johan de Meij (Voorburg, 1953) studied trombone and conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. He has earned international fame as a composer and arranger. His catalogue consists of original compositions, symphonic transcriptions and arrangements of film scores and musicals. His Symphony No. 1, The Lord of the Rings, based on Tolkien's best-selling novels of the same name, was his first composition for wind orchestra. It received the prestigious Sudler Composition Award in 1989. In 2001, the orchestral version was premiered by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The Lord of the Rings has been recorded by renowned orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the North Netherlands Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and the Amsterdam Wind Orchestra. His cello concerto Casanova was awarded First Prize at the International Composition Competition of Corciano [Italy] in 1999. A year later, De Meij won the Oman International Composition Prize with The Red Tower. His Symphony No. 3, Planet Earth was awarded 2nd Prize in the 2006 edition of the Corciano Competition. He received the Dutch Wind Music Award 2007 for his important role in the worldwide advancement of the genre. Besides composing and arranging, Johan de Meij is active as a performer, conductor, adjudicator and lecturer. As a trombone and euphonium player he has performed with the major orchestras and ensembles in The Netherlands, such as the Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the Dutch Brass Sextet, the Amsterdam Wind Orchestra and Orkest ‘De Volharding’. He has conducted some of the leading wind orchestras of Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America and has led master classes around the world. www.johandemeij.com

Robert George "Bob" Uecker ( /ˈjuːkər/ EWK-ər; born January 26, 1935) is a retired American Major League Baseball player, later a sportscaster, comedian and actor. Uecker was given the title of "Mr. Baseball" by TV chat show host Johnny Carson. Since 1971 Uecker has served as a play-by-play announcer for Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcasts.

Though he sometimes joked he was born on an oleo run to Illinois, Uecker was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers at Borchert Field. He signed a professional contract with his hometown Milwaukee Braves in 1956 and made his major league debut as a catcher with the club in 1962. A mediocre hitter, he finished with a career batting average of .200. He was generally a sound defensive player and committed very few errors in his Major League career as a catcher, completing his career with a fielding percentage of .981. However, in 1967, despite playing only 59 games, he led the league with passed balls and is still on the top ten list for most passed balls in a season. At least a partial explanation is that he spent a good deal of the season catching Knuckleballer Phil Niekro. Uecker also played for the St. Louis Cardinals (and was a member of the 1964 World Champion club) and Philadelphia Phillies before returning to the Braves, who had by then moved to Atlanta. His six-year major league career concluded in 1967.