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It’s fun when Homeschool concedes with music with a book through in for good measure. Which is what happened when I found this book on Keith Urban by Jeff Apter (Author).Charlie will read in his music class but I also can’t wait to read the book and to share it with my family. Then I can put the book inside our Homeschool Library or put the book up with my music memorabilia to add to my music room if we ever move back into a house which I hope to one day.
In the first and only definitive biography of country music star Keith Urban, insider Jeff Apter chronicles how a skinny, shy high school dropout with an outrageous mullet went from humble origins in Australia to conquering Nashville and global stardom—plus his struggles with addiction, marriage to Nicole Kidman, turns on American Idol, and more.
Four Grammys. Twenty US Number Ones. A Hollywood marriage. Who wouldn’t want to be Keith Urban?
Keith Urban came from humble origins. His father worked at the local landfill and Keith was a high school dropout. But Keith had a plan: conquer Nashville. “It’s my destiny,” he said. 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 his early trips to America were disastrous. 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). But Keith did eventually reach the top, 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.
As Keith has said, “All those detours, 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 international superstar.
Meet the Author:
In a career spanning more than 30 years I’ve written more than 30 commercially and critically well-received books, including biographies of Keith Urban, the Bee Gees, Angus Young and Jeff Buckley. My work has been published all around the world.
New York’s Kensington Books has just published my Keith Urban biography in the USA and advance reviews — including praise from 15-time Grammy winner Ricky Skaggs — have been terrific. My other recent subjects include AC/DC’s Bon Scott (Bad Boy Boogie), Daniel Johns of Silverchair (The Book of Daniel) and the Easybeats’ George Young (Friday On My Mind).
I co-wrote the Kasey Chambers memoir, called A Little Bird Told Me, and worked as a ghostwriter with Mark Evans of AC/DC on his bestseller, Dirty Deeds. Kasey’s book was part of the ’50 Books You Can’t Put Down’ / Get Reading program in 2011, while Mark’s book made NPR’s best music books of 2011 list. I also helped Michael Browning with his memoir Dog Eat Dog and assisted Richard Clapton with his book, The Best Years of our Lives.
My biography of Johnny O’Keefe was the Sydney Morning Herald’s Pick of the Week in their August 10 2013 issue. My Bee Gees biography, Tragedy: The Sad Ballad of the Gibb Brothers was also Fairfax’s Pick of the week and was published in the UK by Jawbone Press. My latest book, 2023’s Don’t Dream It’s Over: The Remarkable Life of Neil Finn is on the bestseller list in Australia and has been widely praised. ‘Jeff Apter gives us an engaging portrait of the powerhouse behind Crowded House,’ noted the Sydney Morning Herald.
I was a senior writer for Rolling Stone (where I was on staff for several years) and also wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald. I was the music reviewer for The Bulletin for many years and was a senior writer for Vogue and GQ. And I still remember the afternoon I met Aretha Franklin as if it was yesterday.
I’m on Facebook and can also be reached through this site.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
