By Stephanie Gardiner in Tamworth

Keith Urban fronts a throng of photographers and jokes, “it’s like running for office”.

It’s been a presidential-esque welcome back to the Tamworth Country Music Festival for Urban, albeit a brief one.

The global superstar returned to Australia’s country music capital, the place where his career began, to be inducted into the Roll of Renown at the Golden Guitar awards on Saturday night.

The roll honours artists who have made a significant contribution to country music and includes stars like Slim Dusty, Anne Kirkpatrick and Kasey Chambers.

Urban remembered lining up at the Roll of Renown as a boy when Dusty was inducted.

At age 11, he asked Australia’s father of country music to sign the sheet music for hit song Lights On The Hill.

“It was such a great moment for me,” Urban said.

“And to think that maybe over a decade later I’d get to sing that song with him, (it’s) part of the Tamworth surreal experiences that happened to me all my life.”

Urban also thanked his wife Nicole Kidman, who could not make the trip to Tamworth due to filming commitments in Nashville and Germany, and their daughters Sunday and Faith.

He remembered winning the festival’s Star Maker talent contest in 1990, and early hijinks with country colleagues like Troy Cassar-Daley and Lee Kernaghan.

Before his appearance at the awards, Urban surprised fans around town by taking the stage at The Tamworth Hotel and visiting the Big Golden Guitar.

Cassar-Daley swept the awards for his poignant album Between The Fires, recorded in his late mother Irene’s lounge room in rural NSW.

The Gumbaynggirr/Bundjalung singer-songwriter took out the major categories, winning Album of the Year, Male Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for the track Some Days.

He paid tribute to his wife Laurel Edwards for standing by him as he grieved, after his mother died in 2022.

“I didn’t mean to push everyone away,” Cassar-Daley said, his voice surging with emotion.

“It’s just that sometimes to heal you have to take the journey on your own.”

The win takes Cassar-Daley’s collection of Golden Guitars to 45.

Tamworth local Ashleigh Dallas took home the award for Traditional Country Album of the Year for Setting Suns.

Dallas, who is a third-generation Golden Guitar winner, said her work became more honest and vulnerable after the birth of her two daughters.

“I want to show the next generation, and obviously my girls, that being who you are is all we should be asking for,” Dallas told AAP.

GOLDEN GUITAR WINNERS 2025

FEMALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR

• Max Jackson

MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR

• Troy Cassar-Daley

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

• Between The Fires – Troy Cassar-Daley

SONG OF THE YEAR

• Some Days – Troy Cassar-Daley

SINGLE OF THE YEAR

• Little More Country – Max Jackson

ALT COUNTRY ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

• Between the Fires – Troy Cassar-Daley

TRADITIONAL COUNTRY ALBUM OF THE YEAR

• Setting Suns – Ashleigh Dallas

HERITAGE SONG OF THE YEAR

• Windradyne – Troy Cassar-Daley

VOCAL COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR

• Beer in a Bar – The Wolfe Brothers and Kaylee Bell