9781422273241

CHAPTER 1

BELOVED PERFORMER The release of “Your Everything” in 2000 put in motion one of the great country music careers of this era, as Keith Urban has been on a hit-producing binge ever since. A year after “Your Everything” reached the airwaves and put an exclamation point on Urban’s long and arduous journey to Nashville, he was handed the Country Music Association’s (CMA) prestigious Horizon Award. Now known as the NewArtist of theYear award, his name was added to the impressive list of past recipients, includingTaylor Swift, Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, and Brad Paisley. Urban also scooped up the Top New MaleVocalist award at the Academy of Country Music Awards and then charged into the studio to knock out his second U.S. album Golden Road . A masterful collection, it featured four singles that all landed in theTop 10 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Among the quartet of hits was the acclaimed single “Somebody LikeYou” that spent 6 weeks at the top of the charts and years later was named the No. 1 country song of the first decade of the 21st century by Billboard . Urban’s second decade in the Nashville spotlight has been just as dazzling and impressive as the first. Along with his string of platinum albums, his concerts have become must-see events across the globe. Urban’s Graffiti UWorldTour, his 12th headlining concert tour, wrapped up in 2019 after playing more than 70 dates that attracted more than half a million fans. He has certainly come a long way to make his dreams of stardom come true. A STAR IS BORN

11

a star is born