Sat. Sept. 22  

   “I’ve been making a lot of money for a decade and a half,” said Toby Keith, on the phone from Saratoga, NY. He is both brash and matter-of-fact. Indeed, Forbes recently ranked the singer-songwriter-superstar as the world’s biggest earning country music performer. His music and investments earned him over $50 million from May 2010-May 2011.
   Five years ago, he released an album called “White Trash With Money.”
   Keith, who stops at Comcast Center Saturday Sept. 22, is also a proud patriot with massive blue-collar appeal. He’s scored hits such as the controversial, post-9/11 call to arms, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” and “American Soldier” as well as rousing, party-hearty numbers like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Beer for My Horses.” His current hit is “Made in America,” about a heartland couple who defiantly insist on buying American-produced goods even if they cost more.
    Many people in his audience have taken huge knocks in the recession. So, Keith was asked, should those in his income bracket be more heavily taxed, as Warren Buffett advocates, to help ease America’s financial crisis?
    “I don’t know, but I expect the wealthy to write a check ‘cause it’s as bad as it’s ever been,” the Oklahoma-born Keith said. “It would be unpatriotic not to try to save the country. I’m sure people will bitch about it, but if it meant we get to operate in this country and live here another day, then so be it.
    “One way or another, before it’s over they’re gonna have to come and take big money from the earners and big corporations to save the country. I’m sure that everybody that has a patriotic cell in their system will say, ‘If it’s gotta be done, it’s gotta be done.’ I’d rather live here and not have as much money than live anywhere else and have twice as much.”
      Keith releases his 15th studio album, “Clancy’s Tavern,” on Oct. 25. He’ll probably play three songs from it in Mansfield, including the album’s title song, an Irish waltz-country tune about a bar his grandmother Hilda owned.
     In July, Keith turned 50.
   “The first thought that came to mind was I can’t believe I made it,” Keith said. “I really can’t. I was around my grandmother’s bar and liquor from a young age, not that I did any of it. But I got plenty of second- hand smoke and by the time I was 25 I was in bars every night making my living, and then living this lifestyle ever since.”
   As the title of this tour and last year’s CD, “Bullets in the Gun” suggest Keith likes his firearms. He laughs heartily at Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s line about gun control meaning one should use both hands. Keith is legally licensed to carry and does so where permitted.
    “I’m all about good people, licensed and trained, carrying a concealed weapon,” Keith said. “The bad guys are always gonna be carrying guns. There are so many guns in the US and so many bad people that do harm with ‘em. If just one percent of the non-felons would go get their concealed weapons license and carry a gun where they can, one percent puts you in a pretty good position of being somebody that could save a bunch of people’s lives.”
   “If somebody asked me ‘Why do you have one? What are you afraid of?’ I’d say, ‘I ain’t afraid of nothing. I carry so I don’t have to be.’”

. Tickets: $87 -$105.50.

Rte. 1, Mansfield, www.ticketmaster.com 800-754-3000.