By BEVERLY KEEL

Gary Allan opens for Keith Urban on Friday at Sommet Center, and he has nothing but praise for the Australian headliner.

"He is a class act," Gary says. "We've gotten along so well. It's the best tour I've been on, just as far as how I've been treated. There are no insecurities — 'Hey, don't use this stuff of mine.' He is letting us do whatever we want."

The Sumner County resident ends the tour Dec. 16, and then is scheduled to make his first appearance the next night on The Late Show with David Letterman. "This is one of those great big things, like Madison Square Garden, that you've had on your list. Outside of that, it would be Saturday Night Live, and then I would have completed my list. I can quit."

Gary has built an impressive career that includes more than 5 million albums sold and three No. 1 singles. His last studio album, Tough All Over, made its debut at No. 1 on Billboard's country albums chart and made virtually every critics' list of top albums of the year. His new album, Living Hard, was released last month.

But Gary keeps a relatively low profile, a People magazine sexiest man of the year inclusion notwithstanding. You don't often read about him in celebrity magazines or spot him on red carpets.

"That is me not liking to do interviews," he explains. "I think everything in this industry works against you as an artist. I am introverted and in a business that forces me to be extroverted. I've avoided a lot of stuff.

"My management would disagree with me, but I think it gives more mystique to you. If people don't have complete access to you, they have to wonder more. You can be overexposed."

I joke that press-shy George Strait must be his role model. "I think George Strait did it right," he says. "It's genius the way he did his career, and he got a whole lot more sanity doing it that way."