Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / {Takin A Walk Crossover} Clint Black Reflects on His Journey: Authenticity and Connection in Nashville's Music Legacy

Transcript

{Takin A Walk Crossover} Clint Black Reflects on His Journey: Authenticity and Connection in Nashville's Music Legacy · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Taking a Walk buzz night. Here Sarah Harrelson is letting
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: me crash her feed right now. This is my conversation
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with Clint Black from Taking a Walk, and given how
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: central he is to Nashville's story, it felt right to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: share it with you here too. We talk career, songwriting
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and the stories behind the music that made him a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: country icon. If you enjoy it, come find the rest
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of Taking a Walk over six hundred episodes, including selections
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: archived in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wherever
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and keep listening to Sarah Harrelson
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: here on Taking a Walk Nashville. She's got more great
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Nashville conversations coming.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Taking a Walk.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Clint Black, Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast, Sir.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Good to be here, and I can do it sitting
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: down even better.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That's right. So, Clint, you came up playing the Texas
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: clip circuit before anybody knew your name. What did those
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: years teach you about performing and connecting with your audience?
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Oh? Lots of things. Get the money up front, get
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: that fifty dollars in advance, you know. I think one
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: of the things that came out of it was appreciating
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: anyone who shows up. There were times no one showed
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: up and I was playing to the bartender who was
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: cleaning glasses and trying to ignore me. Probably how to
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: be comfortable on stage. You know, it's not a natural
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: thing for us to get up there and you know, hey,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: here I go with my thing. So just being comfortable
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: on stage, being ready for anything, whether it's someone coming
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: up on stage and trying to take my harmonica, or
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: a fight breaking out and the sheriff's coming in and
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: dragging someone off of the dance floor. Being being ready
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: for just about anything, and knowing when to stop playing
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: and when to keep going. But the most important thing
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: would be thank you for showing up, being grateful for.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: That, congratulations on killing time. I want to ask you
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: what was that process like for you? It was going deep,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: certainly into your life and your career and your great legacy.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But what was the process like for.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: You writing the book? Yes, it was a lot of
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: talking with Craig Shelburne and him transcribing that for me.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: He did a lot of research and put that on
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: a document for me, and then you know, help me
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: with the structure, you know, organizing chapters. From there, it
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: was really me taking what I had said or what
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: we were writing about, and putting it in my own
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: words and telling the story the way I would tell it.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Eventually I would have to decide what to leave in
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: and what to leave out. Took his input on that,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: and my editor at HarperCollins, and the exploration of those
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: memories for me was cathartic, fun funny, laughing at my
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: life at times and at times very emotional, reliving this
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: thing that is no more, feeling the loss of that past,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and then eventually getting to the point of fatigue and
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: headaches from just ten twelve hours a day sitting at
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: the computer trying to hit my dead line and not
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: being able to walk away from it, becoming so immersed
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: in it that even when I decided to take a
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: break and get away from it, it was like a
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: magnet and it would pull me back, and I'd be
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: right back at the computer working on it and getting
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: headaches and eventually calling it finished, and then having my
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: editor call it not.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Have a way of doing that.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Huh Yeah. And I loved it. Though I knew before
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: we even started this how lucky I was going to
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: be to have an editor helping me make it better.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So I was all in on that, but I didn't
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: realize how many times I would have to reread, rewrite,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: look for errors and typos, and just go over and
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: over and over and over the book again and again,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: to the point where it took a lot of focus
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: just to read it carefully and not skim along on
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: the surface of what I had written, but to really
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: stay focused on it. And when I was at the
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: end of it and doing that, that's when I was
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: most impacted by my own life and things like losing
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: my dad and things that just just broke me and
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: made me sob all over again. Reliving a life well
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: lived is an emotional ride.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Well you have always had as a hallmark to your
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: life and career, authenticity and truth and a genuine resilience,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and that comes shining through in the book so brilliantly
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: on so many levels, even at very difficult dark periods.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna kick out a few elements here. First of all,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: so that moment when that that writer from it was Variety,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: Who Yeah, one of those Hollywood reporter at Variety wrote
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: the story about about you and Lisa living a part
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: and not being together and you reached out to him,
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: let's just say more than once to really confront that story.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give the whole background of it away,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: but do you still call that guy every year?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: He's passed away a good while back, but I called
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: him every year for a while until I realized nothing
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: would come of it. I wanted him to confront the
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: dishonesty that he was presented with and consider the source.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And the other part was, you know, see how untrue
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: it is. You know, we're still together now nearly thirty
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: five years. I had already experienced, you know, people saying
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: things about me that were cruel or untrue, unkind and
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: all that didn't provoke a reaction or a response from me.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: But when you start talking about my marriage, then it's
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: time to become proactive.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But I think in the long run, too, you even
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: though you had continue to reach out to him to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: kind of say, look, we're still together, you ultimately, if
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I have it correctly, respected the fact that he did
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: not give up his source as well.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Well, yes I did. I H I think it's a
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: it's a mixed bag because he didn't give up his source,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: he also didn't acknowledge that they lied to him, that
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: they were purposely trying to spread false information about my marriage,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: and so the respect was not widespread, let's say.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And then the difficult moment where you had that terrible
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: accident is just such a jocking piece to read in
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: that detail there. That must have been really hard for
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you to go deep into that because that one was
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: not only your physical and mental well being, but that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: was also about your career too, right.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was harder to go through it than it
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: was to revisit it because I've been through through so
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: many surgeries since then that I'm marvel at it. You know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I'm like the six thousand dollars man. Now, you know
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: so many surgeries, and I was. I was one of
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: what I'm told is the rare bird who wanted to
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: know exactly what was being done in detail. I actually
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: had pestered my surgeon for video and he finally sent
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: me a video of one of the surgeries on my neck,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: and I watched it like like this for the first
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: five minutes and then settled in and got used to
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: the gore of it. And but I wanted to know
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: every detail and understand what was happening. Symptom wise and
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: what the corrections were going to be. And so to me,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: it was just this marvel of modern technology and gratitude
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: for having this happen at this time and human history
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: when they did have some pretty good remedies for it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: So to me, it's a it's an a incredibly fascinating
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: and marvelous story to tell. So what I really had
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: the trouble with was was getting the details right. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: I talked to my surgeon, doctor Bray, and got more
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: details so I could be accurate. But what you see
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: in the book is about a third of it all,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: and so when anyone likes to talk about that stuff,
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: I love to tell it.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: The other element that really struck me in the book
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was your very particular description of what an artist faces
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: with their record label and how difficult and challenging that
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: is to stand up for what you believe and to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: kind of keep strong throughout it. I can't help thinking
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: about artists of today who might read this and gain
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: some insight, because it hasn't gotten any easier for artists.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: It's only gotten more difficult, don't you think, Well.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: It's gotten easier for artists like myself who really want
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: to write their own songs. That's more in favor now
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: than ever before. You know, for me, I wouldn't recommend
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: it for everyone. I was willing to throw it all
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: away in order to be as full an artist as
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: I could be. If everything went away because I insisted
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: on being an artist and writing my own songs, then
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: so be it. There wasn't meant to be. And I
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: don't think that's for everyone. I think it has to
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: be according to each his own convictions and what's most important.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: I think financial security can easily be more important to people,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: especially who have the families to support than being the
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: creator of your own work. Confronting your biggest advocate is
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: not I don't I would not push that idea on anyone,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: but I do like the idea of young artists being
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: able to see it cost me, and so it should
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: be considered, you know, and you know, get some cancel
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: on it, because you know you're you're making a choice
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: that could that could hurt you in the long run. Ultimately,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I walked away from the major label system entirely because
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: I wasn't willing to give up my day job writing
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: songs just to be able to sing on my nighttime job.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: It's not for everyone. It's not for the feint of heart.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: And I think the only reason I was so adamant
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: about it is because the artist I respected most I
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: wrote their own songs. And I loved all the songwriters,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: all the Harlan Howard stuff and Dean Dillon and you know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Don Schlitz, you know, you name all of the writers
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: who wrote and weren't known.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: To most of us unsung heroes.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I knew who they were, and I appreciated them,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: of course, but I gravitated to the singer songwriter. That's
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: who I wanted to be. I didn't want to be
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: a star, although I knew stardom was a necessity, but
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be like them. And if I can't
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: be like my heroes, then I'm not just going to
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: do it for the money. And if I had it
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: to do all over again, knowing what I know now,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I might have taken a different tact, a different approach
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: to resolving the issue. But I drew a hard line
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: and that was that. And I do credit the record
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: company in the book for at least releasing the albums
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: I gave them. I may be one of the few
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: artists who just made albums and turned them in. There
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: were a lot of controls on everyone else's albums, and
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: there was one instance where someone at the record company
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: called the producer the co producer and once I think
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: even the engineer to have something changed. I mean I
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: was there for every minute of the playback and overdubs
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and recording and everything. And to think that someone wanted
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to step in and tell an engineer to change something
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: without me there was abhorrent. And so anyway I turned
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: in the albums, they released him. In almost every instance,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: they promoted him, and so I have to give them that. Ultimately,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: bad things were said about me because of my stance.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: You know, my reputation was sullied a bit because I
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: was considered the problem child. But the problem was the
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: record company didn't get to make my records. So I thought,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: not a bad problem to be, but it was at
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: a cost.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: The Class of eighty nine. You, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that moment genuinely changed country music. Did it feel historic
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: to you when it was happening, or did you only
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: understand the magnitude of that later.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Now, as it was happening, and it took a couple
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of years for it to really spin up, and I
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: knew what was happening. I saw Nashville go from six
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: major record companies to twenty six, So, you know, crediting
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: myself for that, I didn't think that way. I just
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: thought there were so many of us who were influenced
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: by all the country greats as well as our pop greats.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But we were making country music. But a lot of us,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: our musical heroes included the Eagles and Jackson Brown and
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: James Taylor and Buffett and Seals and Croft and you know,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Loggins and Messina and Seeger and skinnerd and you know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I call a lot of that rock. But you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: it was considered the more popular front of music until
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Sandscan came out and showed the world just how popular
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: country music really was. So I saw it happening, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I attributed it to all of the talent who had
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: been fighting to get in suddenly had the record companies
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: out of of you know, New York and LA really
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: funding these labels in Nashville because it wasn't you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: twenty six brand new record companies. It was affiliates and
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: subsidiaries of the six major record companies, but they were
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: funded to go out there and create more companies and
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: sign more artists ten fifteen to twenty artists. So there
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: was such an influx of talent who were getting a
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: chance that that was the historic movement. I saw how
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I saw it, and the reason for it was just
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: so much, so much great talent who were given the opportunity.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Let's play a little game called fast five here. First
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: concert you ever attended.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: That would be Merle Haggard.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: First record.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: That was as a child. When I grew up and
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: started going to concerts. I'd been listening to rock and
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: roll and my brothers had brought it home when I
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: was really young. So the first concert I went to
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: that I bought a ticket to was Ted Nugent and
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: the Aboy Dukes. So he still had the and Boyd
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Dukes there attached to him. And the opening act was
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: head East.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Wow, journey to the Center of your Mind and never
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: been any reason. I'm sure we're part of that.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Phil, Yeah, big hit and it was a great show.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's great. First record you ever bought with your
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: own money?
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I tell the story in the book. I used
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: to find money on the ground and I found a
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: twenty dollars bill and my brother Brian said, let's go
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: to the record store. And so he took me to
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the record store and helped me pick out an album
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: he really wanted, and it was Uriah Heap Look at Yourself.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I liked it because it had a quasi mirror on
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: the cover, so look at yourself, and you know, you
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: could see yourself in the reflection, and I thought that
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: as an eight year old, I thought that was cool.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: First song you ever wrote, and what was it about?
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: First song was called time Machine, and it was about
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: just going into the future, going into the past and
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: it being you know, mind blowing and all of this,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: nothing good, nothing to keep. It ended up in the
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: trash bin, so I thought. And then I found it
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: in an old notebook a few years ago. It's nothing
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I would ever share with anyone, but at the time
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I sang it in the talent show at my high school,
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Katie High School, and I got a great reaction. I
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: was h harmonica and guitar and at the same time,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: so pretty novel to a bunch of kids, and got
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: a great reaction. And took second place, and a bunch
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of them were throwing you know, nickels and dimes at me,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: you know, like you know, hey, here's some money. We
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: like this, and I'm like, ouch, ouch, thanks ouch.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: First car and what was always playing in it?
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: First car didn't have a radio. It was a sixty
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: four Plymouth Ford Fury three. It was like the B
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: fifty two song, you know, big as a whale, and
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: it lasted two weeks. It broke down in front of
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: a U Totem convenience store, and by the time my
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: brother Mark and I got back there to get it running,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the owner had had it towed. Wouldn't tell me, couldn't
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: tell me who the towing company was so that I
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: could find the salvage yard. I looked and looked and
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: looked at all through all the salvage yards for it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Never found it. It cost me three hundred dollars, by
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the way, so it was a big loss to me
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: as a teenager, but I would drive again.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: First moment you thought I can actually do this for
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a living.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Seventeen, I think, and I was trying to make a
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: decision for my career path and wanted to be an
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: astronaut and thought the way into that is through the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Air Force, and there's no way the air Force would
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: have taken me. And I kind of knew that. So
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I decided music was it, and whatever kind of a
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: living I made at it would be good enough.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Clint Black The Hard Way on Purpose opens at the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Great Country Music Hall of Fame. What is it like
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: walking through an exhibition about your own life?
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Well, it's I had gone through my storage lockers and
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: pulled a bunch of stuff out for the for the
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: hall to look through and pick what would they could
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: tell the story with. So I had seen some of it,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: but I hadn't seen it on display, you know, standing
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: in the Hall of Fame and museum. So I think
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: what was most striking to me was seeing it with
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: my wife and daughter, and knowing that my fans could
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: see it, my friends who were all there could see
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: it and follow the story. It wasn't all that new
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: to me because I had just written the book and
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I'd seen a bunch of the artifacts. For me, it
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: was more about marveling at the display of it and
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: seeing how they approached laying it all out, because that
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: was not told to me. I didn't have a sense
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: of what the display would be like, and it was
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: fun to see it with Lily especially. She hadn't seen
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: so much of my career as Lisa had, so it
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: was a thrill. It was especially moving to hear the
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: introduction introductory speech with Kyle Young introducing me the CEO
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: of the Hall of Fame, and hearing him talk about
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: my career and who I was as an artist and
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: a writer. That was I think the most moving part
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: of the evening for me.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to see it. I love the Country
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Music Hall of Fame. They do such an amazing job.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You've been described as someone who refused to follow trends,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: who insisted on doing it the hard way on purpose.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: That's sort of how the exhibit kind of lays it out.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Was there ever a moment where that pressure to inform
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: sort of got to you?
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: No.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: I think the frustration that when I learned what it
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: was about, the disappointment. It was real letdown to me
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: to know that it wasn't about the songs, it was
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: about the politics that the record company played in For me,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: it was a it was a very clear choice. I
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: felt I didn't have a choice. This is who I
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: am and if you don't want me, then let me go.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And if you're not going to let me go, then
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: you know, here's my next piece of work. I was
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: a piece of work and now I I just rolled
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: with it. I took the blows and counted my blessings
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: and not my curses.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: You must be so excited about the back on the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Blacktop tour, getting out there with your fans. What does
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: live performance still give you to this day.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Well, it's you know, I always say, you know, every
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: night is a world series game. To me, I want
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: to be at my best. I'm striving for excellence and
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: what it gives me is a chance to entertain people.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: It's all I've ever wanted to do. But doing it
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: all my times, I'm not running around swinging from ropes
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: and all that. There's no iro explosions or anything. It's
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: really about the music and a little bit about the comedy.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: You know, depending on how intimate the venue is, we
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: we get lots of laugh in the show. I did
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: all the stage video screen content myself, So that's another
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: chance to present something that I think compliments the music
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: and the show doesn't detract from it. It's a chance
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: to put myself to the test. You know, I still
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: practice just about every day. I'm pushing myself to get
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: better and better on my instrument, more knowledgeable about music
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: and the technology and the way we present and how
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: it sounds, and every show is a chance to do
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: it to the highest level of excellence we can achieve.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So Clint, tell me about the Lifetime movie and what
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that means to you and how folks can look forward
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to it.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: You know, Lifetime it had approached me a couple of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: times for the song when I said I do my
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: duet with my wife Lisa, and I didn't pay close
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: enough attention or dig in deep. It didn't appeal to
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: me when I first heard about their what I heard
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: about their idea at first, and then I took a
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: meeting and learned more, and I'm so glad I did,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: because it wasn't what I thought. It wasn't what I
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: thought it was. It was so much more. And it
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: was a fantastic opportunity for me and Lisa to help
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: shape a love story that pulled from our values and
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: our principles and our idea of relationships. And so we
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: got to be involved as executive producers. You know, sometimes
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: that can be a privilege, that is, it doesn't require
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: as much involvement, but in this case, we got to
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: be really involved, which made it much more rewarding as
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: a couple and also just creatively to have that palette
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: to work on. I got to come up with the
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: idea of how Lisa and I would appear in the movie.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Although there's a lot of collaboration there, I loved. I
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: loved being able to think about that and come up
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: with ideas and present them and have people who can
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: do this without us helping to make it even better.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: So to have that with a song as special to
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: us as when I said I do, and knowing that
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: we were able to shape what the love story is
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: just made it the best experience, top notch people, great Network, Lifetime.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: It comes on May twenty third. We're excited for everyone
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: to see it, and you know it's a pretty big
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: audience that sees these Lifetime movies, so we're hoping for
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: some great feedback.
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: Well. We always like to close the Taking a Walk
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: podcast with this question, if you could take a walk
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: with anybody living or dead, who would it be and
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: what would you want to talk about?
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Clint Black, I would take a walk with someone both
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: living and dead, and that would be Jesus Christ. I'm
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: trying my best to walk with him, at least on
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: the path that he wants for me, and I feel
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: the greatest joy I have is when I feel close
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: to Him, close to God. I listen for his voice,
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: you know, whenever I really need help. Every night when
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I pray, I try to get closer. And said something
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: in the book about always feeling like you know, it
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: would be arrogant to think the hand of God is
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: president in my life, but I don't think I would
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: have survived and been the man I am without his
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: hand in my life. It makes me more and more
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: emotional to say that, because I'm trying harder and harder
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: to get there, and I never feel close enough. So
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I thought about that knowing the question was coming, and
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: he is always the first name I think of.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Boy, there are so many moments I pinch myself with
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: gratitude when I'm doing this podcast, and this is one
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of those moments. Clint Black, it's really an honor to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: have you on the back on the Blacktop tour the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: new book Killing Time. It's so fantastic to have you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: on taking a walk. I wish you all the best
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and good health.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: It's my owner. Thank you, Thanks buzz.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: That's my conversation with Clint Black. Thanks to Sarah Harrelson
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for letting me share it here on taking a Walk Nashville.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: She'll be back with a new episode coming up soon,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you back on taking a Walk,