Keith Lionel Urban

Keith Lionel Urban...

(born 26 October 1967 in Whangarei) is a New Zealand-born and Australian-raised country music singer, songwriter and guitarist. His parents moved the family to Australia when he was 2 years old, later he began his career in Australia at an early age. In 1991, he released a self-titled debut album, and charted four singles in Australia before moving to the United States in 1992. Eventually, Urban found work as a session guitarist before starting a band known as The Ranch, which recorded one studio album on Capitol Records and charted two singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.
Still signed to Capitol, he made his solo American debut in 1999 with the album Keith Urban. Certified platinum in the U.S., it also produced his first number 1 on Hot Country Songs with "But for the Grace of God". "Somebody Like You", the first single from his second Capitol album Golden Road (2002), was named by Billboard as the biggest country hit of the 2000-2010 decade. This album also earned Urban his first Grammy Award win for "You'll Think of Me", its fourth single. 2004's Be Here, his third American album, produced three more number 1 singles, and became his highest-selling album, earning 4× Platinum certification. Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing was released in 2006, producing the record-setting No.17 country chart debut of "Once in a Lifetime", as well as Urban's second Grammy for the song "Stupid Boy", while a Greatest Hits package entitled Greatest Hits: 18 Kids followed in late 2007. Defying Gravity and Get Closer were released on 31 March 2009 and 16 November 2010, respectively.
Urban has released a total of nine studio albums (one of which was released only in the United Kingdom), as well as one album in The Ranch. He has charted 29 singles on the U.S. country charts, of which 14 have reached number one. Urban plays acoustic and electric guitar, as well as banjo, bass guitar, mandolin, piano, sitar, bouzouki and drums. He is also known for his roles as a coach on the Australian version of the singing competition The Voice, and as a judge on American Idol. Since 2006, he has been married to actress Nicole Kidman.