Keith Urban

Born in New Zealand on 26 October 1967 but mostly raised in Australia, Keith Urban is among the small number of artists to make it as a credible country star not born in the USA. Growing up in Caboolture, Australia, he began his career playing in clubs in Brisbane and gained some success with his debut self-titled album in 1991, including four hit singles. The following year he moved to America, where he started working as a session guitarist and launched a band, the Ranch, who recorded one album together and made a small mark on the country charts. Another self-titled solo album followed in 1999 and produced his first number-one single “But for the Grace of God”. Follow-up album Golden Road (2002) also sold well, earning him his first Grammy Award, and included the country-pop hit “Somebody Like You”. Be Here did even better in 2004, bagging three more number-one singles and he going on to score ten singles in the top position of the US Country Charts, gaining further attention after his marriage to superstar actress Nicole Kidman in 2006. Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing was released in 2006 with a tour of the same name with Carrie Underwood. He duetted with Brad Paisley on “Start a Band,” which was featured on the artist's Play album in 2009. Defying Gravity came in 2009 with singles “Sweet Thing”, “Kiss a Girl” and “Only You Can Love Me This Way” released as singles. The title to his seventh album Get Closer was revealed in 2010 and gave him three further number-one singles in “Without You”, “Long Hot Summer” and “You Gonna Fly”. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2012, joining The Voice Australia as a host the same year, and began work on his eighth album Fuse, which he released in 2013. “We Were Us”, from the album, featured guest vocalist Miranda Lambert and reached number one on the Country Airplay Chart; “Raise 'Em Up”, a duet with Eric Church, achieved the same success two years later. He released his ninth album Ripchord in 2015 with the lead single “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” helping it to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Album and certified platinum by the RIAA in 2017. He was part of 30 country artists to perform on the “Forever Country” single celebrating 50 years of the CMA Awards in 2016 and released a single with Carrie Underwood, “The Fighter”. He followed this by releasing the lead single from his tenth album Graffiti U. The single, “Female”, is reported to be inspired by the Harvey Weinstein scandal. He later released “Parallel Line” as the album's second single and the album achieved a number one position on the Top Country Albums Chart in the US, Canada and Australia. He returned in 2020 amidst the coronavirus pandemic with The Speed of Now Part 1, which reached #7 on the Billboard 200 and was promoted with a drive-in show for frontline medical professionals. His eleventh studio album, High, was released in September 2024, for which he took on co-production duties and co-wrote half the songs.