Keith Urban Recalls His Cabaret Past

Before there was Keith Urban, multi-platinum country music superstar, there was a talented teenager who lived in the faraway land of Australia. And one of the New Zealand-born Aussie's first jobs in the music business was as a musical director for an Australian cabaret singer. Keith recalls that long-ago time with a chuckle.

"The whole thing was pretty odd," he tells St. Louis Today. "I mean, I was 16, with hair down past my shoulders ... and I had to perform in a tuxedo. "We'd play a song -- 'The Twelfth of Never' -- and in some ways it's a bit like learning algebra or something! [I thought] when am I ever going to need this later in life?"

The answer to that question came some 20 years later as Keith found himself in a session with one of country music's living legends.

"I was in the studio with Dolly Parton, doing, of all things, 'The Twelfth of Never!'" Keith recalls. "She said, 'You probably won't know this song.' I said, 'Strangely enough, I do!'"

Dolly Parton's version of 'The Twelfth of Never,' featuring Keith, is included on her 2005 album, 'Those Were the Days.'