A New Shade Of Black Country Star Clint Black Rearranges His Priorities To Put Life And Music Writing Ahead Of His Career

Clint Black has a fresh outlook on life. He’s left behind his days as a country music meteor who was burning out rapidly and suffering his share of management hassles. There’s a new Clint Black on the road this summer - and he rather enjoys the keenly needed change.

“I’m now doing things for the long term rather than trying to ride a wave for a couple of years,” says Black. “A lot of people get on a certain schedule and they burn out. But in the last year I’ve been learning to change things around.”

Black says that he’s shifted priorities and put songwriting back at the top, rather than getting caught up in image and touring endlessly to please a manager, as he did when he broke through in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

“I’ve gotten to the point now where it’s damn the torpedoes, because what matters is the music and everything else can wait,” Black says in a recent phone interview from the road. “The reason that country music embraced me in the first place was because of my songs. I plan to write songs for the rest of my life that radio wants to play.”

Black has already done well in that department. Last year, he was the most-played country artist on the radio, according to Billboard’s Broadcast Data System (the radio counterpart to SoundScan), which tracks airplay. What put him at the top was his single “Untanglin’ My Mind” (cowritten with Merle Haggard), his five hit singles from the “No Time to Kill” album (including “A Good Run of Bad Luck” and “Half the Man”) and his version of the Eagles’ “Desperado,” recorded for the album “Common Thread: Tribute to the Eagles.”

Black’s recommitment to songwriting brings him full circle to his early club days in Houston. “Back then, I left my car on the side of the highway a few times because I couldn’t afford an alternator. But I always paid the payment on my guitar.”

Black, who is married to actress Lisa Hartman, has had more than a dozen No. 1 country singles in the six years that he’s been a star. In order to find “new sources of input” for his songs, he’s been on a self-education campaign that’s taken him far out of music.

“I’ve been reading books and other things besides the faxes and contracts that you have to keep up with in this business,” says Black, 33. “I also have a computer, so I can learn from that. And I expose myself to different cultures by traveling abroad. But for me, reading is the most important thing. I read history books and some fictional stuff. I did a lot of reading in the Bible in order to write a Christmas album. I read some self-help books. I like to get better at everything I do.”

Black’s Christmas album - due this fall - contains all-original songs that Black hopes will enable him to be viewed as more than just a country artist. “I recorded some of it in London with a symphony orchestra. I took the opportunity to step outside my genre and make an album without regard to what I do normally. I wanted to keep my home in country radio, but also go beyond it.

“On some of the songs, you wouldn’t imagine it was me,” he says of the Christmas record. “I’m really excited by it. I think it best exemplifies what I can do as a writer. A lot of people pigeonhole us country songwriters. They don’t consider it a challenge to write country songs. So I hope this album will show them something.”

Unlike some songwriters who are little more than rock ‘n’ rollers climbing on country’s bandwagon, Black does have a genuine country heart. His band employs fiddle, Dobro and pedal steel guitar in concert. His idol is venerable honky-tonker Merle Haggard.

Asked whether there’s too much rock ‘n’ roll in country music today, Black says diplomatically, “It’s hard to talk about without seeming like I’m criticizing others. I also like to have an exciting show with a lot of dynamic range, but there are some things that I won’t do. … It’s all in the instrumentation. If I changed a couple of instruments in the band and brought in some different keyboard sounds, put some overdrive on guitar and put some growl in my voice, then I’d sound like (rock act) Bob Seger. We’re all walking a fine line and some of us cross it.”

As part of his new long-term outlook on his career, Black left the arena circuit in the past year to do a well-received acoustic tour of small theaters. “Nobody made any money, but I wanted to get close to the 2,000-3,000 fans that came every night. I had a great time and we played two hours of music a night. You can’t do that on some of the (arena) package tours.”

There’s also an acoustic segment on his current summer tour. “We incorporated some of what we did in the small theaters last year. We line up in the front of the stage and do some old stuff, some new stuff and some stuff that we haven’t released yet.”

Black also has new management these days and, consistent with his take-charge tone, he’s not being bullied into anything he doesn’t want to do. “The fact is that managers will go from one artist to another,” he says. “They’ll maybe have 10, maybe 20 artists in their career. But I only have one career. If somebody’s going to decide something, it’s me.”