Clint Black

Clint Black stands out as a Texas-rooted traditionalist who helped ignite the broad commercial surge of country music during the 1990s. He also ranks among the earliest performers whose influences drew equally from rock-flavored pop by 1970s singer-songwriters and 1960s rock and roll, together with country stalwarts Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, and George Jones. Although born in New Jersey and raised in Houston, he stormed the country charts with his 1989 debut, sending his first four singles straight to number one while placing his initial twenty-four releases inside the Top Ten. Because he co-wrote every major hit, Black infuses his work with a personal voice seldom encountered in Nashville circles. His additional talents as guitarist and producer have yielded successful team-ups with Roy Rogers, Martina McBride, Wynonna, Alison Krauss, Bruce Hornsby, and wife Lisa Hartman-Black.

Black entered the world in New Jersey yet grew up in Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb. During childhood he absorbed both country and rock and roll, yet he waited until age thirteen to pick up the guitar and begin harmonica lessons. Two years afterward he started composing songs and joined his brother Kevin’s band on bass and vocals. By the early 1980s he was performing on Katy sidewalks, then progressed to coffee houses, bars, and nightclubs.

In 1987 Black encountered guitarist and songwriter Hayden Nicholas, who maintained a home studio. The pair soon teamed up to craft songs and cut demos; Nicholas later served as Black’s bandleader on lead guitar and co-authored most of his chart-topping singles. A demo tape reached Bill Ham, manager of ZZ Top. Impressed, Ham took on Black’s management, securing an RCA Nashville contract by late 1988.

Black’s debut single, “A Better Man,” arrived early in 1989 and climbed to number one, marking the first time in fifteen years that a new male country artist achieved that feat with an opening release. He quickly became a sensation across country music, appearing at the Grand Ole Opry in April, one month before the May launch of his first album, Killin’ Time. The record sold gold within six months and yielded four additional hits, among them the number-one singles “Killin’ Time,” “Nobody’s Home,” and “Walkin’ Away.” At year’s end he captured the Country Music Association’s Horizon Award and Best Male Vocalist honor, plus Academy of Country Music trophies for Best Album, Best Single, Best Male Vocalist, and Best New Male Vocalist, along with the NSAI Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award. By the close of 1990, Killin’ Time had moved more than two million copies in the United States.

Black issued his sophomore album, Put Yourself in My Shoes, in 1990. Like its predecessor, the set achieved major success, generating four Top Ten singles—“Put Yourself in My Shoes,” “One More Payment,” and the chart-toppers “Loving Blind” and “Where Are You Now”—while surpassing two million sales and reaching number eighteen on the pop charts. Throughout 1990 he toured with Alabama and performed on numerous national television programs. In 1991 further singles from the album charted, and he gained induction into the Grand Ole Opry. On New Year’s Eve that year he married actress Lisa Hartman.

During summer 1992 Black delivered his third album, The Hard Way. It earned widespread praise and immediate commercial traction, climbing to number two on the country charts and entering the pop Top Ten. Lead single “We Tell Ourselves” topped the country chart that summer, followed by two more Top Ten entries, “Burn One Down” and “When My Ship Comes In.” Black embarked on an extensive world tour in June 1992.

His fourth album, No Time to Kill, appeared in 1993, earned platinum certification, and produced the number-one country hit “A Good Run of Bad Luck,” which also appeared in the 1994 film Maverick. Four additional singles—“A Bad Goodbye” featuring Wynonna Judd, “No Time to Kill,” “State of Mind,” and “Half the Man”—reached the country Top Ten. In fall 1994 he released his fifth album, One Emotion, which likewise delivered multiple Top Ten tracks, including the number-one single “Summer’s Comin’.” One year later came the holiday collection Looking for Christmas. After a two-year break, Nothin’ But the Taillights surfaced, with both the title track and “The Shoes You’re Wearing” reaching number one on the country chart. Just before the millennium closed, Black marked a decade of recordings with D’Lectrified in 1999. Several hits compilations followed into the new century.

In 2001 he launched his own imprint, Equity Music Group, and co-established the publishing firm Blacktop Music Group Inc. alongside business manager Charlie Sussman and music publisher Mike Sebastian. Over the ensuing nine years Blacktop assembled a catalog exceeding four thousand songs from prominent Nashville songwriters. Black resumed recording in 2004 with Spend My Time, his first collection of original material in more than six years, then issued Drinkin’ Songs & Other Logic in 2005. He continued occasional touring yet avoided the studio until 2010, when he and his partners sold the publishing company to the independent music conglomerate Ole.

Black kept writing both solo and with collaborators including Steve Wariner, Frank Nicholas, and Bill Anderson. He started his own label, Blacktop Records—unrelated to the earlier firm—and partnered with Thirty Tigers. Early in 2015 he began recording a new project at his Nashville home studio and additional facilities in California. The resulting album, On Purpose, included appearances by Big & Rich and Lisa Hartman-Black and arrived in September on Blacktop/Thirty Tigers. He remained with the label for the 2020 release Out of Sane.