Clint Black is a colorful example of the dramatic transition incountry tradition. His musical background absorbs everything fromthe crustacean ballads of Jimmy Buffett to the classical rock of Yes.
Black's former manager is Bill Ham, who guided the career of ZZTop. Ironically, Ham has been replaced by Black's mother-in-law,Jonni Hartman, the mother of actress Lisa Hartman, whom Black marriedlate last year.
When it came time to speak with Black about his new album, "TheHard Way," and a subsequent 150-city tour, he stuck to an assignedmeeting in a publicist's office in Los Angeles and not in Nashville.He only talked to a few publications, mostly those in major markets.And the rest of the week was busy - Black had guest spots on "LateNight With David Letterman," "Good Morning America" and "Live WithRegis & Kathy Lee."
Hey - is it Black or is it Whitesnake?
"I was exposed to many styles of music growing up in Houston,through my dad and radio," Black said in a phone interview. "Wehad a great rock station. (Bill Young, the program director of hisfavorite station, went on to direct Black's first two videos and the`Loving Blind' video.) We also had these bandit stations that wouldplay cosmic country out of Austin and progressive country likeMarshall Tucker.
"One of the guys in one of our first bands was listening to UFOand the Psychedelic Furs. He taught me Chris Squire (of Yes) runs onbass guitar. So all of a sudden, we could be playing in a countrybar, we would lose the gig and then we'd go to this biker bar andplay Yes. I'd be doing Yes on bass and singing `Long DistanceRunaround.' I was exposed to it all."
Black's memories show how today's biggest country stars comefrom a sophisticated popular culture that gave them the autonomy toselect a musical course. Black went from playing Yes bass lines tobecoming the Country Music Association's 1990 male vocalist of theyear. Mary-Chapin Carpenter was once a pristine folkie singing inGeorgetown area clubs. Now she owns a 1992 Grammy for female countryvocal of the year.
If there is one characteristic that has connected generations ofcountry artists, it is integrity. Country musicians have alwayscarried a deep commitment to expressing familiar human emotionsdirectly and honestly.
As country music continues to grow in popularity, integrity needs to be guarded. Black is thissummer's first country barometer, as e'll walk the line betweenold-fashioned country integrity and the excesses of a rock show atthe World Theatre in Tinley Park on Saturday. (Garth Brooks is upnext on Aug. 28 in an already sold-out show at the World. Ticketsremain for Black.)
Black's $250,000 set of purple mountains and majestic arches wasdesigned by the Universal Studios team that created the set for themovie "Earthquake." The set is modeled on Arches National Park in the Mojave Desert, where Black's current "We Tell Ourselves"video was shot.
For those sitting far away from the stage, Black has provided apair of 15-by-20-foot video walls. The entire shebang requires a52-man road crew and five semitractor trailers to assemble and packup nightly. Adding still another grandiose dimension is engineerRichard Irwin, who was tour engineer for the Eagles and who mixedCrosby, Stills & Nash - at Woodstock.
"This is the biggest thing I've ever thought of doing," Blacksaid. The Brooks comparison
The immense nature of Black's show brings up the obvious Brookscomparsion. Brooks - and to an extent, Hank Williams Jr. - arepioneers in selling rock gimmickry to a country audience.
"I haven't seen Garth's show, so I can't comment on him," Blacksaid. "Everything I'm going to do will bring attention to the rightperformer onstage, the right instrumental solo (he is carrying a11-piece band, almost unweildly for traditional country) and to bringextra meaning to the lyric. It sounds like a big rock show, but it'sreally not. My intention has always been to be as extravagant as Ican with my production, but never to distract from the music. Mymusic is country and this new album is very traditional."
"The Hard Way" takes some time to ease into. Black's debut,"Killin' Time" (1989), delivered a still-unprecedented fiveconsecutive No. 1 songs on Billboard's country charts.
The followup, "Put Myself in Your Shoes" (1990), went doubleplatinum in October, 1991. Legal entanglements with Ham then stalledBlack's career.
In a terse press release issued in March through Jonni Hartman,Black charged that Ham took commissions from one of his endorsements"over and above the amount called for in our management agreement,failed to provide him full and timely financial statements andrefused to meet with him as requested."
Through Hartman, Black also said, "Mr. Ham has apparentlyexpressed his concern over the quality of advice I am (now)receiving. I am pleased to say that since terminating myrelationship with Mr. Ham, I no longer suffer from that problem."
Ham was cool in his response.
In his March 27 press release, he wrote in part, "When I readJonni Hartman's scurrilous press release, I cannot believe in myheart that Clint had anything to do with it, as I consider the attackunworthy of him."
Ham said that he had always provided competent legal andfinancial representation for Black. A multimillion-dollar legalbattle has begun, and Black saids only that the courtroom drama willspeak for itself.
So what is left is the music, and there's a sense of catching upon "The Hard Way." During Black's hiatus, his star has been eclipsedby those of Brooks, Alan Jackson and stud muffin Billy Ray Cyrus. Sowhile Black describes the album as "very traditional" (and the titletrack is), there are obvious departures.
"We Tell Ourselves" is straight-ahead country pop delivered witha rock backbeat. The ballad "Wake Up Yesterday" is brought to lifethrough Crosby, Stills & Nash harmonies, echoing "MarrakeshExpress."
"It pushes the line a little more than the first and secondalbum," Black admitted. "There is cleaner production, and it is alittle more aggressive. It reveals a few more country styles I wasinfluenced by - like Waylon Jennings and even Vince Gill. Some ofthe newer stuff is affecting me."
The last few years, Black has peppered his sets with"Steamroller Blues," which was a hit for James Taylor, and JimmyBuffett's "Son of a Sailor." Buffett influences
On this tour, he has been introducing his new song "When MyShip Comes In" as "about 500 kilometers west of Margaritaville."Black and Buffett co-wrote a song that, according to Black, shouldpop up on his fourth album.
Black's folk-rock influences don't stop there. When he used toplay acoustic guitar in Houston, he covered the songs of Jim Croce,Loggins & Messina and Dan Fogelberg.
But the method in which Black's music retains country characteris through an American gothic tenor suggesting the gritty shades ofMerle Haggard. "Merle depicts, to the greatest extent as one personcould, what country music is," said Black, who opened for the Haglast year. "Although I don't perform that style primarily, that'sprimarily what influenced me in country music. Largely, it's thesongs. Merle's had so many great ones. He writes such beautifulmelodies.
"Merle and I wrote a song together on our tour. He brought thistape to me with a verse and chorus. So I wrote two more verses,worked on the chorus a little bit and brought it back to him. Hetook it, studied it, and said, `Clint, if it weren't for this oneword, I'd give you an A-plus.' I said, `What word would you use?'And he said, `How 'bout `leavin'?' And I said, `That's it, Merle.Leavin'. Why didn't you think of that earlier?' "
That's how country songs are written.
Black's regular co-writer is Hayden Nicholas, the guitarist inhis band. They wrote half of "Killin' Time," nine of the 10 songs on"Put Myself in Your Shoes" and nine of the 10 songs on "The HardWay." The only ringer is "A Woman Has Her Way." David Bellamy ofthe Bellamy Brothers gave Black the hook, and Black and JerryWilliams wrote the ballad, which is anchored by the warning, "A manhas his will, but a woman has her way."
Of his writing style, Black said, "Hayden and I line up fivepages of paper on a coffee table and sit there with two acousticguitars. We have five ideas on the table at one time. When we getstumped on something, we don't wear it out, we just move over toanother song." A flexible discipline
It's a flexible discipline that Black has grown used to. Hebegan playing harmonica at 13, and started playing guitar and singingat age 15.
"I always had a guitar or harmonica with me, everywhere I wentin Houston," he said. "Friends used to toss quarters at me as ajoke, but I took them. We'd hang out in front of the pool hall, I'dplay my harmonica and people would come by and listen. There wasalways somebody with a guitar around, so it was easy to find someoneto sit around and play with."
Even if it meant having to play Yes.
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