Still on a roll: Keith Urban’s journey to world renown finally comes full circle

It was 35 years ago, during the height of summer in Tamworth NSW, that Keith Urban’s life changed forever.

A younger Keith Urban ready to take on the world.

It was 35 years ago, during the height of summer in Tamworth NSW, that Keith Urban’s life changed forever.

After a long, hot week busking along the city’s famous Peel Street, the then 22-year-old singer-songwriter – already a veteran of the Tamworth Country Music Festival – was named the winner of the prestigious 1990 StarMaker talent competition.

Just a year later, he packed his guitar and relocated to Nashville.

And we all know what happened next.

But Urban has never forgotten Tamworth, the home of Australian country music.

On Friday, he returned to the place where it all began.

“Tamworth has played such a huge role in my career,” he said.

“My memories of (busking boulevard) Peel Street are super exciting. I was nine when I first went, and I remember it feeling like this endless stream of artists and creativity.”

The 57-year-old touched down on the final weekend of the southern hemisphere’s biggest live music festival, ahead of the 53rd Golden Guitar Awards.

There he will be inducted into the Roll of Renown, a prestigious honour whose previous inductees include Slim Dusty, John Williamson, Joy McKean, Kasey Chambers and Troy Cassar-Daley.

The award will be a full-circle moment for Urban, who recalls as a 10-year-old witnessing Slim Dusty’s own crowning moment.

“It’s surreal,” he said. “When I was 10, I was in Tamworth and went to see Slim Dusty being honoured on the Roll of Renown.

“I had just bought the sheet music for Lights on the Hill and stood in a long line, patiently waiting to meet Slim Dusty and have him sign it, which he did.”

Years later, the pair would tour together and perform that very song as a duet. “To see my name alongside all the titans of Australian country music on that very roll – it’s just incredible.”

Urban returns this weekend to Tamworth.

Urban also will receive on Saturday the Golden Guitar for Top Selling Australian Country Album of the Year for his 11th studio LP High. The gong will be his 15th Golden Guitar, in addition to his four Grammys, 13 Country Music Awards and six ARIAs.

Urban said the exponential growth in country music – a recent Spotify report named Australia as the third-largest consumer of the genre – was no surprise.

“What’s been happening in recent years is that people are finally seeing a broader perception of what country music is,” he said.

“In the past, country in Australia struggled to break into the mainstream because it was often seen as this narrow style – cowboy hats, hay bales, checkered shirts, and that was about it.

“But country has always been a huge, broad genre.”

Urban said recent forays by mainstream pop artists including Beyonce, Ringo Starr, Post Malone and The Wiggles into the country genre was a natural evolution for an art form that prided itself on storytelling.

“I think the new explosion of country music started in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and people were craving something more authentic – songs with real storytelling, relatable artists, grounded truths,” he said.

“Country music was there, and the right artists showed up at the right time. You had new artists like Zach Bryan and icons like Troy Cassar-Daley, who were speaking those truths in a way that connected with people. It’s no surprise to me that country took off because those artists spoke to a whole new generation.”

Forty-time Golden Guitar winner Cassar-Daley – who used to busk with Urban on Peel Street – heads into Saturday’s awards as the most nominated artist for the 2025 Golden Guitars, with a total of six nods.

Michael Waugh is up for five while Colin Buchanan, James Johnston, Kasey Chambers, Kingswood and Lee Kernaghan have four nominations each.

Urban’s High and Alive World Tour will come to Australia in August and will feature nine arena shows.

More than 300,000 people converged on Tamworth this year for the 10-day festival, organisers said, with more than 800 artists performing 5000 shows around the city.