'Suburban loner, gifted guitarist, drug addict, planinum-plated superstar: Keith Urban has squeezed a lot of living into his 40 years. He now ranks with Kylie Minogue, INXS, Silverchair and Savage Garden as one of the country's biggest musical exports of the past 20 years.
'Fortunate Son, the first biography of this movie-star-handsome country hero, tells the unlikely story of how Urban - who was born in New Zealand in 1967 but raised in Queensland - followed and eventually fulfilled his dream of selling country music back to the Americans, the people who created it in the first place.
'In an age when a crew of crack Nashville songwriters generate most of the hit songs recorded in Music City, Urban is an anomaly: actually writing, or at least co-writing, most of his material. Many feel he's watered down his rootsy take on country music to please the masses, but Urban's success is undeniable: to date he's sold more than five million albums, has scored five US Number One singles and typically sells out his stadium-sized shows in minutes...
'...based upon extensive interviews with friends, foes and Urban insiders, Fortunate Son reveals how Keith Urban lived out his childhood dream - and the price he's had to pay to reach the top of the music business.' (Publisher's blurb)
Keith Urban
Keith Urban : His Amazing Journey from Daydreamer to Superstar
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2022
23799083
2022
single work
biography
'A comprehensive biography that documents how Keith Urban lived out his childhood dream - and the price he's had to pay to reach the top.
'Keith Urban came from humble origins. Born in New Zealand and raised in outer Brisbane, his father worked at the local tip; Keith was a high school dropout. When he was a child, the family house burned down, like something straight out of a country song. But Keith had a plan. A big plan. 'Nashville's not my dream,' he once said. 'It's my destiny.' And Keith was hell-bent on scaling that musical Everest. Whatever it took.
'It didn't come easy. Keith served his apprenticeship in the beer barns of Australia and was constantly on the road. His early trips to America, meanwhile, were disasters. But he never gave up, settling in Nashville in the 1990s and forming The Ranch. When the band fell apart, so did Keith, ending up in rehab (not for the last time). Keith did eventually reach the top, however, through a combination of talent, charisma, sex appeal, dogged perseverance - and skin thick enough for a rhino. And along the way he married Nicole Kidman.
'Keith Urban has lived out his musical dreams: he's jammed with the Rolling Stones, buddied up with John Fogerty and Glen Campbell and shared a stage with the Reverend Al Green. He's become a regular on Oprah and Ellen. And in a seemingly unlikely makeover, Keith has recently worked with the biggest names in pop, dance and groove, from Taylor Swift to Pink, Nile Rodgers to Post Malone and Pitbull. Along the way Keith has won four Grammys, the same as the Bee Gees and Olivia Newton-John. He's also recorded 20 US Country Number One hits.
''All I ever wanted to do,' Keith said in 2020, 'was to live in America and make records and tour and maybe get my songs on the radio. It was my life's dream. All those detours, especially the really dark ones, got me to where I am now. I would not want to change one leaf on any tree in the whole journey.'
'Keith Urban is the definitive biography of an Oz music superstar.' (Publication summary)
