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Keith Urban And Carrie Underwood To Perform ‘The Fighter’ At ACM Awards

By Brad Faber
Published on: 03:14 PST, Apr 2, 2017

Country stars Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood will be performing the duet “The Fighter” at the 52nd annual ACM awards, according to Rolling Stone.

The song was originally released earlier this year as the fifth single from Urban’s Ripcord album. Ripcord has been a big success for Urban and also features the hit singles “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,” “Break on Me,” “Wasted Time,” and “Blue Ain’t Your Color.”

Per Billboard, the first time that Urban and Underwood performed the “pop-heavy country hit” together was early last December in Wellington, New Zealand. As the Inquisitr has previously reported, Urban and Underwood also teamed up to perform the song at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards this past February. Though the song has been quite popular, it has received criticism from some for apparently straying too far away from traditional sounding country music.

In an interview with People Magazine, Urban revealed that the early days of his relationship with Nicole Kidman was the inspiration for “The Fighter”. Urban and Kidman first met in 2005.

“It was a very quick song to write because I literally just thought about [Nicole] and I, and our relationship at the beginning and some of the thing the we’d said,” Urban told People. “And they all went into that song.”

According to Billboard, Urban originally began working on the song while he was in London during the autumn of 2015. At the time, Nicole Kidman was starring “in the West End production Photograph 51,” and Urban reportedly asked songwriter busbee to join him overseas for a few days.

Per Billboard, Urban and busbee put together a “bridge” for “The Fighter” after leaving London and arriving back in Los Angeles. This part of the song was later specifically designed for Underwood.

“‘The Fighter’ did not have a bridge when Urban and busbee left London, but they put one together over a couple of writing sessions later in Los Angeles. The melody came first, and it was tailored specifically to Underwood’s range.”

According to Rolling Stone, Urban has been nominated for seven awards this year, more than any other artist. However, Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris are close behind with six nominations each. Urban is also nominated for entertainer of the year, which is an award that Billboard pointed out in a recent interview that he has never won before, despite being nominated a total of six times.

As Rolling Stone also reports, in addition to the scheduled duet by Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood, there will be many other collaborations at this year’s ACM awards as well. These duets will include, but are not limited to, performances by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Maren Morris and Thomas Rhett, and Reba McEntire and Lauren Daigle.

Earlier this year, Urban’s aforementioned “Blue Ain’t Your Color” became his 22nd No. 1 single, according to Taste of Country. His first No. 1 single, “But For The Grace of God,” came from his self-titled breakout album, which was released in 1999.

Underwood was the winner of American Idol in 2005 and has since gone on to release five albums, as well as a greatest hits CD. In just over a decade, she had already notched 24 No. 1 singles as of July of 2016, according to One Country. Some of Underwood’s hit singles include “Wasted,” “Before He Cheats,” “See You Again,” and “All-American Girl.”

Urban and Underwood have both had tremendously successful careers in country music. The 52 annual AMC awards air on Sunday, April 2, at 8 p.m. EST on CBS. Will you be tuning in to see Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban perform “The Fighter”? Let us know!

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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