Clint Black

 

"Ain't it funny how a melody can bring back a memory,Take you to another place and time,Completely change your state of mind." Yes, the melodies are memorable. For if you love country music, they're virtually a soundtrack of the '90s. And when delivered by the unmistakable voice of Clint Black, they can, indeed change your "State 
of Mind." 

In the bleakest part of the winter of 1989, there was something fresh on the radio airwaves, a song called "A Better Man" that looked at a failed relationship through optimistic eyes. That summer, "Killin' Time" was a darker vision, a lyric loaded with metaphor and levels of meaning that took you to the scary edge of alcohol abuse. They were the opening salvos of an extraordinary career and the introduction to a troubadour so prolific he would fill six complete albums with original songs in asmany years to come. 

The memories they bring back are impressively vivid, from Clint's bluesy 
harmonica passages in "Put Yourself in My Shoes" to the soaring vocals 
traded with Wynonna on the lushly melodic "A Bad Goodbye," from the 
machine-gun syllables and propulsive percussion of "A Good Run of Bad 
Luck" to the trenchant, keenly crafted lyrics of the waltz "Burn One 
Down." 

The visual images are just as memorable -- the squinty-eyed grin of a 
kid winning his first Country Music Association Award, the brave smile 
of a volunteer going to entertain in Somalia, the quick jump through the 
tumble of his concert-stage "earthquake" arch, the bluejeans-and-tuxedo 
duds of a Texas country wedding, the happy glow on his face standing 
next to American icon Roy Rogers, the tireless good manners displayed 
during any of a thousand autograph sessions or the jaunty performances 
in Keebler TV ads. These are the memories of Clint Black, melodies and 
images that take us to a place and time that's really only the day 
before yesterday. 

The baby of Ann and G.A. Black's four boys came to the music business 
with boundless optimism and purity of intent. Clint's father is a 
passionate country fan who instilled the same fervor in his boys Mark, 
Brian, Kevin and Clint. But it was the youngest who shaped that passion 
into a truly individual vision. Clint stole one of Brian's harmonicas at 
age 13 and taught himself to play it. Two years later the teenager 
learned the rudiments of guitar. Almost overnight Clint was pursuing the 
muse of music with astonishing focus and devotion. 

In retrospect, only a fool or a truly dedicated musician would drop out 
of high school to play bass in his brother Kevin's band. It's a measure 
of Clint's passion that he did that in 1978 and a mark of his strikingly 
mature professionalism that he had his own solo gigs within three years. 
A 1981 booking in Houston's Barton Springs led to eight solid years of 
playing on the local club circuit. 

It was during this apprenticeship that Clint Black met guitarist Hayden 
Nicholas. The team would later co-create such classic moments as the 
airy bounce of "Summer's Comin'," the silvery sizzling crescendo of "We 
Tell Ourselves" and the rolling rumble of "No Time to Kill." Hayden had 
an eight-track home studio. Together, the novices began making tapes of 
the tunes that would bring them fame. Clint was 25 when a chain of 
events suddenly brought him to Nashville to play a tape in Joe Galante's 
RCA Records office. 

At the time, Nashville was just beginning to flex its "young country" 
muscles. George Strait and Randy Travis had demonstrated that there was 
a hunger for imaginatively produced records based on country traditions. 
Alabama and Sawyer Brown had alerted the industry to a potentially vast 
youth market. But most of the "new country" headliners had yet to 
emerge. In 1988, Alan Jackson was still in the mail room at The 
Nashville Network; songwriter Garth Brooks had been turned down by 
virtually every record label in town; Ronnie Dunn was still in Oklahoma; 
Billy Ray Cyrus was still in Kentucky; in Louisiana, young Tim McGraw 
had just bought his first guitar, and Lorrie Morgan, Vince Gill and Pam 
Tillis were still seeking breakthrough hits on Music Row. 

In this climate, Clint Black's arrival was splashy and spectacular. He 
raised eyebrows by incorporating his band members into his recording 
sessions, stunned everyone with his composing prowess and bowled Music 
Row over by scoring five No. 1 singles from his debut album, a feat then 
unprecedented in any field of music. 

"Clint Black. You'll be hearing his name a lot," opined USA Today. 
"There may never have been a country performer who has created a bigger 
stir right out of the box. Or one placed...in such a perfect position to 
become the next superstar." 

In 1989-90 Clint became a lightning rod for the electricity in a new jolt of country talent. He was in the vanguard of the "new-country" army that was then marching over the pop-music horizon. Roughly six months 
after Clint's emergence, Garth Brooks released the first of a series of chart-toppers. The following January Alan Jackson issued Here in the Real World to launch a multi-million selling career. In 1991, Brooks & Dunn began their trip to the top as country touring champions. 

There were many in the movement. But no one else had Clint Black's distinctive quality as a tunesmith, the ability to twist a melody into a serpentine delight, the talent to invest lyrics with multiple shadings and innuendo. Clint has the rare gift of being able to craft songs that are both artful and commercial, hits that can be taken either as audio candy or as insightful poetry. 

The first album went Triple Platinum and each successive release also 
became a million-seller. By the end of 1990 Clint was headlining his own 
concert tour and collecting CMA, ACM, ASCAP, TNN and AMA honors by the shelf-full. That December, he played a triumphant hometown show in 
Houston at The Summit. Backstage, he met Houston-bred actress Lisa 
Hartman. 

Clint was developing quite a reputation. Observers couldn't help noting 
his unflagging energy, professionalism, friendliness, magnetism and 
media cooperation. "I wanted to be the perfect artist," he recalls. "I'd 
do three hours of media interviews a day, going to every radio station I 
could squeeze in. I'd sign autographs after the show until everybody 
left." That dedication would practically exhaust him in years to come, 
but in 1991 Clint was still in the warm limelight of new stardom. 

That was the year he joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry and began 
collaborating with country legends like Merle Haggard and Roy Rogers. In 
September he and Lisa announced their engagement in Nashville at the 
glamorous, black-tie ASCAP awards banquet. When they wed on his farm 
outside Houston in October, magazine photos were circulated around the 
world. 

But fame and success carry a high price. In early 1992, a flurry of 
lawsuits with his ex-manager threatened to topple his career. RCA made a 
commitment to continue with him, but the mess of legal action delayed 
the release of The Hard Way and stalled his progress. This was 
particularly disheartening since the collection was the first he'd 
co-produced himself. But Clint dug in his heels, issued "We Tell 
Ourselves" as his comeback single in June and launched a touring 
extravaganza that put him in front of 1.5 million people during the next 
six months. The show utilized 54 crew members, six buses and five 
tractor-trailers and featured his famed "earthquake" arch effect. 

In 1993 Playboy named his "Black and Wy" national tour with Wynonna its 
Concert of the Year. Their summer duet "A Bad Goodbye" became an 
omnipresent radio hit and paved the way for the back-to-back successes 
of "No Time to Kill" and "State of Mind." Clint and Lisa became the 
first entertainers to visit U.S. troops stationed in war-and- famine 
ravaged Somalia. He rounded out the year by singing the theme song for 
TV's "Harts of the West" and contributing "Desperado" to the Common 
Threads Eagles tribute, named Album of the Year by the CMA. 

Billboard magazine named Clint Black the Most-Played Country Radio 
Artist of 1994. That was the year he staged his acting debut in TV's 
"Wings" and the movie Maverick. "A Good Run of Bad Luck," performed for the Maverick soundtrack, became Clint's first directing job on a music 
video. He made history with his next two by creating them as the first 
clips shot on large-format, 65mm film. He sang for a TV audience of 50 
million at the National Memorial Day Celebration in Washington, then for 
a viewership of one billion at Superbowl XXVIII. But instead of 
following the industry trend of bigger and more spectacular concerts, he 
stripped things down to an "Up Close" series of performances that put 
him in intimate theater settings for intensely personal two-hour 
showcases. 

If a man who has carved out such a special and individualistic body of 
hits isn't "the perfect artist," he's pretty damn close to it.
By Robert K. Oermann
Nashville, Tennessee 

BIO:
Clint Black has brought the music world a string of million-selling 
albums and more than 20 top-10 hits by continually urging his creative 
spirits to new heights. With Nothin' But The Taillights, Black shows us 
that this spirit is more fiery and restless than ever before. A landmark 
in every sense of the term, Nothin' But The Taillights finds the much 
awarded singer-songwriter in the company of a wildly diverse group of 
artists, all adding new shades to the rainbow of emotions he brings to 
his music. Fellow stars such as Martina McBride, Steve Wariner, Alison 
Krauss and Marty Stuart are new additions to Black's creative process, 
as are such acclaimed Nashville songwriters as Matraca Berg, Kostas and 
Skip Ewing. There's a track featuring the talents of guitar heroes Mark 
Knopfler, Steve Wariner, Larry Carlton and Chet Atkins. Grammy winning 
Nashville Bluegrass Band fiddler Stuart Duncan is on board. Even the 
London Session Orchestra makes an appearance. 

"Every now and then I like to throw myself a curve ball, just to see 
which way I'll move," says Black with a chuckle. "You won't naturally 
move in any direction unless you make yourself. I thought it was time to 
confront myself with another challenge. 

"You get with different people and different things are bound to happen. 
So Nothin' But The Taillights is my collaborative album in every way, 
from songwriting to playing to singing and recording. I'm really pleased 
with the way it turned out and I hope everybody else likes it as much as 
I do." 

Black's soaring ballad duet with McBride, "Still Holding On" has already 
emerged as a major hit single from the package. In fact, radio stations 
were so eager for the track that some acquired a bootleg tape of it and 
put it on the air, forcing RCA to rush release the single and to push 
forward the pressing of Nothin' But The Taillights. 

There is a great deal more on the set that will stir the feelings of 
music lovers, from the intensely romantic "That Something in My Life" to 
the rebellious, feisty "Loosen Up My Strings." The title tune is a 
firecracker uptempo sizzler; "Our Kind of Love" finds Black exploring 
bluegrass textures with Alison Krauss and Union Station; while "You 
Don't Need Me Now" is a performance with full symphony orchestration. 
"The Shoes You're Wearing" is a social statement; and Black becomes 
movingly philosophical on his collaboration with Ewing, "Something That 
We Do." Black's first blues composition is here, too, "Bitter Side of 
Sweet." 

The all-star guitar number is "Ode to Chet," a salute to one of the 
architects of modern country music. Black recently sang it to Chet 
Atkins at the four-hour Ryman Auditorium extravaganza honoring "Mr. 
Guitar" in Nashville. "You Know It All" is co-written with Wariner, but 
it is as deeply personal song as Black has ever penned, since it speaks 
directly of his marriage with actress Lisa Hartman Black. 

The collaborators who have helped Clint Black in the past are here as 
well, notably songwriters Hayden Nicholas ("What I Feel Inside") and 
Shake Russell ("Our Kind of Love") and co-producer James Stroud. The 
overall feeling of Nothin' But The Taillights is of a creative renewal 
and artistic refreshment. 

Hayden Nicholas was the first to join Clint Black in his creative endeavor. The struggling Houston honky-tonker met Nicholas 10 years ago, 
in January 1987. They began to co-write and to record in Hayden's little 
studio. The first thing they got on tape was "Nobody's Home," which 
later became one of Black's chart-topping hits. That fall, Clint Black 
introduced his music to RCA Records who subsequently released his debut album in 1989. 

He burst on the charts in February 1989 with "Better Man," the first of 
five consecutive No.1 hits from his debut album that made him the leader 
of the "new country" movement. By that summer, Black was playing arenas 
as a special guest on some of the biggest country tours. In October of 
that year, Clint Black was awarded the Country Music Association's 
prestigious Horizon Award for his achievements as a new artist. 

His reputation spread like wildfire throughout 1990. Black became a huge 
media and fan favorite with his unflagging energy, professionalism, 
friendliness, magnetism and easy-going charm. Killin' Time was succeeded by Put Yourself In My Shoes, which yielded four more top-10 hits and became his second multi-million seller. He won the CMA's Male Vocalist of the Year award, the American Music Award as Favorite New Male Country Artist and also received Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Best New Male Vocalist and Best Male Vocalist awards from the Academy of Country Music, all in one year. 

Clint joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in January 1991. In mid-year 
the legendary Roy Rogers became the first of his duet partners. He and 
Lisa married that October. The Hard Way became his third album in early 
1992; and Black promoted it with a lavish $250,000 stage production that 
was seen by more than a million people that year. 

His duet with Wynonna, "A Bad Goodbye," became a massive hit in 1993 and their national tour together was named Concert of the Year by Playboy. 
No Time to Kill was issued as Black's fourth platinum CD and he recorded 
"Desperado," contributing to Common Threads: Songs of the Eagles, found it's own legs as a country radio favorite. That album earned the CMA's Album of the Year honor. 

Thanks to a string of hits from his fifth CD, One Emotion, Clint Black 
was named radio's most played country artist of 1994 by Billboard 
magazine. In September 1994, his Merle Haggard song collaboration 
"Untanglin' My Mind" hit the charts. Also in å94, Black staged his 
acting debut in TV's Wings and recorded "A Good Run of Bad Luck" for Mel Gibson's Maverick, where he appeared as a gambler who was thrown 
overboard for cheating. The song, which was featured on the movie's 
soundtrack, also inspired Black's first foray into video directing. 
Black continued to direct his own videos including "Summer's Comin'," a 
star-studded video featuring appearances by Jay Leno, Dick Clark, Howie 
Mandel, David Hasselhoff, Joey Lawrence, Lee Sklar, George Kennedy, 
Gerald McRainey and Lisa Hartman Black. 

In 1995, Clint Black issued his holiday collection of original 
compositions, Looking for Christmas, and was still seeing success from 
back-to-back chart-topping singles from his One Emotion album. 

Last year's The Greatest Hits album contained three new tunes. Two of 
them, "Like the Rain" and "Halfway Up," became his 23rd and 24th top-10 
smashes. The third, "Cadillac Jack Favor," was inspired by a TV movie in 
development at CBS in which Black will portray a true-life rodeo 
champion wrongly imprisoned after being framed for a double-murder. 

This year, Clint Black came off the road to concentrate full time on 
creating Nothin' But The Taillights. By the sound of things, that was 
time well spent. For Nothin' But The Taillights is nothin' but a 
masterwork.

Discography:

 

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