Musician of the Week

I just discovered Keith Urban. Yeah, yeah... he's been around for a few years, but I didn't bother with him because of my dislike for country music. I am listening to his song "Tonight I Wanna Cry." It's so sad and beautiful. *sniff* Sorry, just had a "mushy moment." Maybe it has something to do with Urban's being a cute Aussie (I have a partiality to Aussie men). Or because his style isn't backwoods-red-neck Texan-country-boy. Urban's style is smoother than average country-trash. (My apologies to any country fans out there.) I'm not a country fan, but I think I'm a Keith Urban fan...

Keith Urban (born in New Zealand) learned to play guitar as a six-year-old in Australia, after a young woman asked to place an ad in his dad's shop window offering guitar lessons. His parents made a deal with her that they would advertise in return for lessons for their young son. The boy had natural ability. By the time he was eight, Urban was winning talent shows. He also was involved in a youth acting company which required him to sing, dance, and memorize lines, all of which led to the ease on stage which would serve him well in his music career.

With his father deeply interested in American culture and country music, it was also natural that Keith would gravitate towards country music early on, when he was influenced by the singing of Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, and Don Williams, and the songwriting of Jimmy Webb ("Galveston"). Urban added his own dimension to those influences when he discovered Dire Straits, and became interested in the guitar playing of Mark Knopfler and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, embarking on in-depth study and endless practice of their techniques.

For the rest of his bio, click here.