Keith Urban

The Ranch was a three-member country music band, formed by New Zealand-born country artist Keith Urban in 1997. Urban served as the band's lead... vocalist, in addition to playing guitar, ganjo, and keyboards. Jerry Flowers sang harmony vocals and played bass guitar, and Peter Clarke played drums. The band recorded only one album and charted two singles, "Walkin' the Country" and "Just Some Love," on the country charts before disbanding in 1998. Besides its two singles, The Ranch included a song entitled "Some Days You Gotta Dance", which was later released as a single by the Dixie Chicks from their 1999 album Fly, and which also featured Urban on guitar. Urban later started a solo career on Capitol Records. Due to Urban's solo success, The Ranch's album was re-issued in 2004 on Capitol/EMI as Keith Urban in The Ranch with the added inclusion of two bonus tracks. All songs written and composed by Keith Urban and Vernon Rust except where noted.  Strings on "Ghost in the Guitar" performed by the Nashville String Machine, conducted by Carl Marsh, arranged by Carl Marsh, Monty Powell and Keith Urban.
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Capitol Records is a major United States–based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but as of 2011 operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. It is a... wholly owned subsidiary of EMI. The Capitol Records Company was founded by songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of fellow songwriter and film producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs , owner of Music City, at the time the biggest record store in Los Angeles. Johnny Mercer first suggested the idea of starting a record company while he was golfing with Harold Arlen and Bobby Sherwood. He told them, "I’ve got this idea of starting a record company. I get so tired of listening to the way everyone treats music. I keep feeling they’re selling out. And I don’t like the way artists are treated either. Bing Crosby isn’t the only one who can make records. I don’t know, I think it would be fun." By 1941, Mercer was not only an experienced songwriter, but a singer with a number of records to his name.
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Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy... and southeastern American folk music. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 Country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute. Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years.
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