Keith Urban Biography

Keith Urban was born in 1967 in Whangarei, New Zealand. Keith grew up in Australia and fell in love with both acting and music when he was still a teenager. With a focus on country music, Urban began perfecting the guitar and performing regularly, becoming a staple in Australia’s growing country music scene in the late 1980’s. By 1990, Keith had signed with Australia’s division of EMI and released Keith Urban, his debut album. After moving to the United States, to Nashville, two years later, he began performing with other country music stars and co-writing songs with them, including Alan Jackson, Charlie Daniels, and Paul Jefferson.

In 1999, Keith Urban released another self-titled American debut, and the album was a smash hit, spawning Urban’s first number one hit with the song “But for the Grace of God” and rising to platinum status.  Urban’s sophomore effort, Golden Road, was even more successful upon its release in 2002. The songs “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me,” “Somebody Like You,” “Raining on Sunday,” and “You’ll Think of Me” all rose into the top 10 and earned Keith his first Grammy, for Best Male country Vocal Performance. Since that time, Urban has released a series of additional hit albums: Be Here (2004), Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing (2006), Defying Gravity (2009), and Get Closer (2010), giving audiences the hits “Days Go By,” “Making Memories of Us,” “Better Life,” “You Look Good in my Shirt,” “Sweet Thing,” “Only You Can Love me this Way,” “Without You,” “Long Hot Summer,” and “You Gonna Fly.”

In his decade-long career thus far, Keith Urban has been recognized with Academy of Country Music Awards for Top New Male Vocalist, Album of the Year (Be Here), Top Male Vocalist, and Vocal Event of the Year; Country Music Association Awards for the Horizon Award, Male Vocalist of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, International Artist of the Year, and Musical Event of the Year; Grammy Awards for Best Male Country Vocal Performance (three times, for “You’ll Think of Me,” “Stupid Boy,” and “Till Summer Comes Around”); and an American Music Award for Favorite Country Male Artist. Urban’s nine studio albums have brought him nearly thirty hit singles in total, with fourteen number one hits so far.

Most recently, Keith Urban has served as a coach on the reality competition show The Voice and as a judge on American Idol. In 2012, he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and recently appeared on Tim McGraw’s song “Highway Don’t Care.” Keith Urban continues to write, perform, and record, and is planning his next studio release in the near future.