Urban Celebrates Summer in Winter

Keith Urban enjoys celebrating #1 hits.  His last one, “Long Hot Summer,” hit the top of the charts back in October.  Around that time, Keith found out he needed some vocal surgery, and had to take some time off.  The “Long Hot Summer” #1 party was delayed a few months so everyone connected with the song could attend.  That included Keith’s co-writer, pop star Richard Marx.  The party took place on January 25th at The Cabana in Nashville.  This was Keith & Richard’s second #1 together.  Their first, “Better Life,” peaked in October of 2005. 

The party began with Richard and Keith taking questions from the press.  Keith said the song was written during the summer of 2010, after the Nashville flood destroyed all of Keith’s guitars.  The two started the song in Nashville, and they finished it in Chicago while Keith was touring with The Eagles.  Richard recalls, “Joe Walsh came in while we were writing and said, ‘Am I interrupting something?’  ‘Yeah, kinda.’ So we think Joe Walsh put some good mojo on the song and we’re grateful.”

Near the end of the press conference, Keith revealed that this song actually became part of repairing their friendship: “We had an issue with each other that’s all I’m gonna say. I learned a lot about the importance of friendship and this guy was so incredibly gracious and good and I learned a lot about what it takes to be a real friend. And I wanted to really make it up to Richard and show him that our friendship really means something to me and so I said, ‘Please I wanna write together again we should really do that’ and we talked about it for a long time and we eventually did. And I’m so glad that we got to not only write the song but for the song to take us to this point because it wasn’t born of a quota to write a song it was born of a want for us to reconnect. And the song was just… it was a byproduct of that desire.”

The party ended with Urban and Marx performing the song with two people that Keith found on YouTube singing the song. With a young man singing lead and an even younger girl playing lead guitar, the two music superstars sang background vocals to their number one hit that made the music industry crowd downright cheer.

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