Keith Urban celebrated his #1 hit "Long Hot Summer" with his co-writer, pop star Richard Marx, Wednesday in Nashville, but it wasn't your typical music industry event. After accepting their trophies from different organizations, Keith and Richard invited two young artists they found on YouTube to perform the song with them. Teenage guitarist Leslie Strong from Kentucky and singer Patrick Woolam of Kansas City had uploaded videos of themselves performing "Long Hot Summer" online, and Keith contacted them and brought them to Nashville for the event.
The inspiration didn't stop there. It turns out Keith and Richard had some kind of issue between them after writing Keith's hits "Better Life" and "Everybody" in the past few years. They wouldn't go into detail, but Keith said Richard really taught him a lot about friendship through this experience. "I wanted to really make it up to Richard and show him that our friendship really means something to me," Keith explains. That's when they arranged to get together again and write a song. Keith says of "Long Hot Summer," "It wasn't born of a quota to write a song. It was born of a want for us to reconnect. The song was just a byproduct of that desire."
For those of you wondering, Keith's voice sounded great Wednesday following his vocal cord surgery last month. Keith's first official performance after his surgery is coming up February 3 at the Grand Ole Opry.
No comments:
Post a Comment