Artist of the Week: Keith Urban

CountryTown is proud to announce Multiple ARIA and GRAMMY Award winner, Keith Urban as our Artist Of The Week, following the release of his new single Nightfalls.

Urban was born in Whangarei, New Zealand and later moved to Queensland, Australia with his parents. He started learning guitar at six-years-old, before entering local competitions and acting in local theatre productions. In 1983, Urban was a contestant on the Australian TV talent show, New Faces, which led to regular appearances on other television programmes and local gigs.

In 1990, he released his self-titled debut album. Following his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry backing Slim Dusty on tour, Urban moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1992, where he song wrote and played guitar for the likes of Toby Keith, Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks.

In 1997, Urban formed the band The Ranch. They released their self-titled album that same year, with included the charting singles Walkin’ The Country and Just Some Love. After disbanding the following year, Urban resumed his solo career, releasing his second self-titled album. The album produced a string of hits and earned Urban the 2001 ACM Award for ‘Top New Male Vocalist’.

His 2002 album Golden Road featured the singles Somebody Like You, Raining On Sunday, Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me and You’ll Think Of Me. The latter won him the GRAMMY Award for ‘Best Male Country Vocal Performance’ in 2005. Albums Be Here (2004), Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing (2006), Greatest Hits: 18 Kids (2007), Defying Gravity (2009), Get Closer (2010), Fuse (2013), Ripcord (2016), Graffiti U (2018) and The Speed Of Now Part 1 (2020) followed.  

To date, Urban has won four GRAMMY Awards, six ARIA awards, fourteen Golden Guitars, thirteen CMAs, fifteen ACMs, three AMAs, two People’s Choice Awards, and celebrated nine consecutive gold, platinum, or multi-platinum albums. He has had 24 #1’s, 43 Top 10 singles in the U.S., 27 #1’s in Canada, and numerous other chart-topping placements in Australia, the U.K., and other countries worldwide. Not to mention, Urban has collaborated with a diverse group of artists including Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Chris Stapleton, Eric Church, BRELAND, Miranda Lambert, Nile Rodgers, Taylor Swift and more.

Urban was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2012. He was later appointed Officer of the Order of Australia at the 2020 Australia Day Honours for “distinguished service to the performing arts as a singer and songwriter, and to charitable organisations.” He has been married to actress Nicole Kidman since 2006. They share two daughters – Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret.

Urban first single of 2022, Nightfalls is a euphoric moonlit anthem co-written with Greg Kurstin and Mozella. The infectious track marks a similar return of Urban’s high-energy, in-the-moment spirit and all-round divergent musicality.

Urban says, “Writing Nightfalls with Greg Kurstin and Mozella was pure joy. Two summers have gone by with no way to tour and the desire to have that feeling again inspired every part of this song and recording. In a world so full of real struggles and fractures, I wanna try and bring something to help us exhale and be in the moment - if only for 3 mins and 41 seconds.”

His The Speed Of Now World Tour gets underway in April in the UK before ending up in Australia in December with Birds of Tokyo as the special guest. Urban will also re-appear on The Voice Season 11 alongside Rita Ora, Jessica Mauboy and Guy Sebastian from April 18.

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Keep up to date with Keith Urban on his Facebook page here.

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