Iconic country music singer/songwriter, Clint Black sat down with Bobby for over an hour and dove into his decade before the spotlight—ten years of bar gigs that sharpened his craft and set up the big break. Clint also shares the surreal moment when fans started showing up at his house, and how he balanced gratitude with new boundaries. Clint walks Bobby through the making of “A Better Man,” from the first spark to the line that made it click. He also tells Bobby about his worst onstage injury, falling off a stage and what it taught him about recovery and resilience. Plus: how he met his wife, and what’s actually hard about being famous when the lights go down.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
There was a constant flow of people coming by the house.
Even the wife of guitar player in Garth's band and
four other women knocked on my door one morning at
eight am. They said, we just wanted to see if
you were really nice. Said, well, you should have come
by at noon.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Now it's time for episode five forty six with the
great Clint Black. I really like Clint as a person.
In the last couple of years, I've been able to
spend a little more time with Clint. Even at the
ACMs which were on Amazon. He was presenting and I
was doing like the bad second co host job. Why
(00:49):
just going to the crowd. But I was back because
I had to do all of rehearsal, so I had
to sit through the whole show before it went on.
And he was presenting, and so he's back. He was
in my dressing room, which was just a curtained off room.
Wasn't even cool, but he was in and we were
writing jokes for his hit, which I thought was interesting.
He was just writing a joke. I guess he can
do that. He's Clint Black, and so I like Clinton.
(01:12):
He played our million dollar show with this with the
Raging Idiots last year. He's got just so many great
songs and I'm leaving here better man, Jam. This killing
time is killing me.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Jam. We could keep going, but love Clint. He came over.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We talked for over an hour. I did his show,
Talking in Circles his TV show once and that was
super fun, so it was nice for him to come
over and do this. He has extended his back on
the black Top North American Tour with a final twenty
twenty six leg in the spring, so he's on the
road now. He's still tours like crazy. I didn't know
he had like a back issue, like surgery.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The thing I learned is we need to get pillows
just in case people have back issues. Yeah, because he
was like, on my back, you have a pillow. We
didn't have a single pillow. So what I did is
I grabbed like some towels, and I like stuff towels.
This year, I know I gotta do better. Check out
Clint Black dot com. He is one of the sharpest
guys that I've ever met in this business.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Here he is. They're great, Clint Black.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Did you just play cover songs and bars for a while,
Did you go through that normal trajectory?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah? I.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Uh, I guess it was probably if you count the
years after I got my break, when I was still
playing bars for fifty bucks, it was about ten years.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, you start wonder if I'm going about it the
right way.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Maybe you should do air conditioners.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I if I would have had a fallback.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You see, my brother Kevin, we both quit iron working,
and uh uh and I started playing in bar he
and I started playing in bars, and then he left
and went back to ironworking. It's just dependable money. And uh,
I couldn't. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that
iron work anymore. Every day I just thought, why aren't
(03:05):
I singing somewhere? And I had to make the decision
if this is as far as I get, this is
what I'm gonna do, And so there wasn't a way out.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I think that that's part.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Of the reason I, you know, made it through.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You're in the bars for ten years.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
At any point, did you think maybe I won't even
be a front man, because there are other paths you
can play guitar in a band.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, but I wasn't. I played guitar to accompany myself.
I never set out to be good at guitar. I
wanted to sing and I needed, you know, I needed
this simple guitar part to do at least that. So
I wasn't on a path to be in a sideman.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And that that never like fell in like maybe this
is what I'll do. I want to stay in music,
but it never was. I think I'll go be a
part of a band.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Then when I was in the band with my brother, uh,
there was uh. There were too many conflicts, too much
disagreement and uh and there was not one person who
could ultimately decide on anything. So when I came out
of that band and went solo, I knew, if I
(04:16):
ever have a band again, it'll be one I put
together and and I get to say what happens?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So then, what was the moment or what? Why did
you get your break? So you're playing in the bars?
But when did it change? Did you move to Nashville first?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I would There was no way I was going to
move to Nashville first. It was too intimidating, too uh,
it was too much of an enigma, and I knew
I had to have a manager. So what finally made
the uh the switch for me?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
What?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Uh? I was reading all.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
These books self Help, music Business, The Platinum Rainbow and
all these things, trying to figure out how am I
going to do this because what I'm doing isn't working.
And I found a book called Time Management, Work Smarter,
not Harder, and I followed the exercise in the book
of laying out goals, and under each goal you write
(05:14):
down every activity you can imagine would lead you to
that goal. And then every day your job is to
be checking off as many activities as you can, one
of which was.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Make a demo.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So I had this gig that I was going to
get and it was twice what I was earning playing
solo gigs. It was one hundred dollars a night. And
in order for me to get that solo gig, I
had to do this party for them with a band.
So I found a band, and by the time we
(05:53):
got to a rehearsal with the band, the guitar player
that was in the band had left and Hayden Nicholas
was now the guitar player for this gig. And so
Hayden was great, best guitar player I'd ever played with.
So we gravitated one another. He said, what are you doing?
I'm trying to make demos. He said, I have an
(06:13):
eight track recorder and we can make some demos. I'll
charge you one hundred and fifty bucks a song, and
if you get a record deal out of it, it
goes up to three hundred retroactively.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
So you got to pay him more if I.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Get a record deal. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
We struck that deal and started making demos, and I
needed the demo to find a manager. I knew a
record promoter in town because he managed Managing Quotation managed
me for you know, ten minutes, but he was a
legitimate record promoter with platinum records all over his office walls, so.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I knew he knew people.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And the first demo we finished was Nobody's Home, and
took that to him, and he took me to Bill Hamm,
who I knew was zz Tops manager, and that was my.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Break and he believed in you. He heard it and
believed it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, Yeah, he heard that and two other songs from
the first album we had demo. By the time I
met him, we had that song maybe Nothing's News and
winding Down and so yeah, he heard those and said
he wanted to hear more. So Hayden and I feverishly
(07:36):
went to work making more demos.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
What were you wearing then? Do you have a look? Uh?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, I had basically the same look. I didn't have
a cowboy hat. The one I had was trashed, and
I couldn't even really afford guitar strings. The guy at
the guitar store sold him to me as cheaply as
he could. And I went through a lot of guitar
strings playing four to seven hours a night, you know,
(08:04):
and sweat right through them, you know, So I'd have
to have.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Two sets per night for two guitars.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So between that and gas, I mean, I was, I
really until I got the record deal, I.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Couldn't afford to buy a new hat.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And as soon as I could afford a new hat,
and I got some new shirts out of the deal,
you know, I got I got a nice cowboy hat,
kind of like the one you see behind here. But
but it wasn't until I met this guy, Doug Eastman
with the Waco Hat company, who said, I'm gonna make
(08:45):
you a hat that really fits your head. And he
put a device on my head and it printed out
the shape of my head, and and and he made
in the brim was about three quarters of an inch
shorter than the hat I was wearing, And as soon
as I put it on, I knew, this is this
(09:07):
is my hat.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Did you stay with that type of hat forever?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Forever? Still today? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
In fact, I still have that hat. And the guy
down in Texas that makes my hats now it's it's
in his office.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
It's the model. So every time they make me a
new hat, they go by that.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
When did you move to Nashville? How long?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Ninety ninety one?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
You didn't move here till ninety one?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
No, even though you were in the famous class of
eighty nine.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, yep, but I was here all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But he didn't move here.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
But it was it was I never got home. I
was in a hotel here all the time. So finally
I wanted to stay in Texas. I recorded most of
the albums in Texas, but I never got home. I
had my place there, and when I got a little
bit of money, you know, I got a better place,
(10:03):
and I just never saw it.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
What was it then that made you move here? If
you were doing just finding with a place down.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
There, just knowing every time we had two or three
days off, the buses ended up here and I could
fly home one day, be home a day, fly back
the next to get on the bus.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And I wasn't gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So I found a place here up on Old Hickory
Lake on the north side.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
And lived there for a while.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And the people it was just it was a long
drive to get here, and I was coming here all
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And you mean from Old Hickory Lake, I mean from Houston, Houston.
That's a long drive too.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, but on the north side of Old Hickory Lake.
And I was in a little cove between Johnny Cash's
house and Roy Orbison's house.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I was.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I was way up there, and so the drive back
and forth was killing me. But also there was a
constant flow of people coming by the house, coming by
the dock and you know, yelling up and coming and
knocking on the door.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But even uh, the wife of guitar player and Garth's
band and four other women knocked on my door one
morning at eight am. I had to get I had
to get out of bed to come answer the door.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And uh, what would they say?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They said, we just wanted to see if you were
really nice. I said, we usually come by at noon?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Did you get a fence? How do you stop that lead?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
You know, Uh, you couldn't get a fence.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It was against the rags and uh. And you know
there were people that were drunk that were just coming
up in their boats. And I'm from Houston, so you know,
my brother was a cop. I worked in security. I
had to study crime and in order to do that job,
so that concerned me. If it were just fans that
(12:07):
were harmless, okay, just please don't wake me up. But
I was, you know, I was thinking of the old
security mind, that there's too many people come into my house.
But that wasn't. That wasn't when I moved to town.
It was the drive. I just couldn't take it.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That album in eighty nine, Killing Time. How many of
those songs did you have stashed away in those sessions
that you were writing before.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I don't know before, well, Nothing's News was old. I
was twenty two when I wrote that. Winding Down was
probably wrote it in eighty five Live and Learn. Probably
nineteen eighty five. That's that's probably winding Down, Nothing's News,
(13:02):
Live and Learn. There were other songs that would end
up that I'd written, like when I was eighteen, Like
the next album, Loving Blind, I wrote when I was eighteen,
state of Mind, which was a big hit. On my
fourth album I wrote when I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Do you think it was weird when you came to
town and there were co writes?
Speaker 4 (13:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
No, because I'd already been doing that. I've been co
writing with Hayden, co writing with Sheik Russell, and so
I liked that idea. But I had to make sure
and write songs by myself so that it didn't become
a crutch. So I would have something I'd think I'm
going to get with Hayden wrote, you know, and then
(13:42):
I'd say, you know, I really need to write another
one by myself. So songs like a Bad Goodbye and
others I just made myself. It's more fun to write
with someone else. There's a lot more juice in the room.
There's laughs you can have in between, and writing by
yourself is it can be exciting when you're making progress
(14:05):
and you come up with great ideas, but not a
lot of laughs.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You know, unless you're really crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, which, yeah, you got to be crazy to even
do this job. You got to be really crazy to
be laughing alone. As you're writing a song. Yeah, on
that eighty nine album, with your first record, did you
have an expectation of success or was it you're blind
to it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Let's just see what happens.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
No, I had an expectation.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I'm a country fan first, and we watched everything that
country music would feed us, and we listened to all
the stations and thank you so much, thank you Morgan.
We consumed everything there was to consume. So we were
country fans and we knew what we liked. So if
(14:52):
I've had something I liked and my dad liked it
and my brothers liked it, I knew that other people
like us would like it. But you don't really know,
and I knew. I didn't really know. I just thought
I knew, and so there has to be at least
an ounce of humility and that knowing.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
But I believed it. I believe that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
People were really going to like those songs. I knew
we had the wrong first single. What was the first
thingle It was straight from the factory, and I knew
that was wrong as Western swing and I'm thinking of
these big cities. We went into kz LA in Los Angeles,
big station, Bob Gara Production of the program manager, and
(15:44):
we're playing him straight from the factory. At the end
of the first course, second chorus, really he had stopped
and he said, if you get that into the top twenty,
I can add it. And that isn't what we wanted
to hear.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You wanted to hear it go right away.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, so I had.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I had strong doubts about it, but I had a
cassette in my pocket and I didn't know the rules,
so I just took a chance. Carson Schreiber, the promotion
guy for that region of RCA, wasn't going to hit
me over the head later, and I said, can I
play you another song?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
You know, Bob, And he.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Said yeah, So put on a Better Man, And at
the end of the first chorus he hit stop and
said I'll add.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That out of the box. No way, and we left
and I grant Carson.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I said, we have to call Joe Glatti and tell
him we have to change the first single. And he
called Joe and Joe changed the first single right then
and there, and Better Man went number one.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Sarah Evans over she was in one of those chairs
over there. She was rocking back and forth in it,
and she wiped out.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
They have video of that we do with a coffee
in her hand.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Okay, well I would.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Text me that video later so I can send to
her with commentary.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I was so scared when it happened, because you just
didn't want her to be hurt. And she somehow fell
and held the coffee. It's like when somebody falls or
jumps in the lake and they keep.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Their beer up. Yeah, she did that with the coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I mean, she wiped out, had it And I'm at
a crossroads and I'm like, well, I like, Sarah, do
I poke at her or or do I call.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Nine one one as soon as you know she's not injured.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And she was awesome about it, and yeah, she was like, yeah,
I shouldn't have been rocking back in the chair, but
she wiped out.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It was awkward for a second.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
She's a regular.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Person, and you know, I've seen things happen to irregular
persons who think that they I guess they think they're
supposed to be perfect.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, and they can't laugh at themselves.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, I thought she was super cool about it. Yeah,
I was worried. Also.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
It was like I saw kat Oslin fall down on
stage a show down in Florida.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, she fell down.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
She's in high heels and a tight skirt and she's
laying on the floor and she signals the band and
the vand stops and she's lying on her side looking
at the audience and she says, I bet showler, wondering
how I'm gonna get from here.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Have you ever fallen off stage? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Off off stage?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
What happened?
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Injury?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Surgery?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Really?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I fell off the stage in Canada in twenty fifteen,
and I turned it into a jump because I realized
I was going so I kind of I went ahead
and jumped instead of just teetering over.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
But I couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We were in a marina and concrete floor, and I
couldn't see the ground because of the spot lights and
and so I wasn't able to time the bending of
the knees shock absorption, and I landed on my right
heel with a straight leg and it ruptured a disc
(19:14):
in my lumbar, and I knew something was wrong. I
didn't know how bad, but I got back on stage.
I kept got right back, kept singing.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Adrenaline kept you up.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I was, I wasn't playing guitar on that song. Put
yourself in my shoes and uh. I just got up
and finished the show, and I iced it all the
next day, which was a day off, and then I
had two more shows. I got through those shows. My
right leg was numb. I almost fell a few times
(19:49):
just because I couldn't really feel my leg. And then
I got on a a plane and went to flew
to LA and by the time I got to the airport,
I had to request a wheelchair and I hated it.
I just I just I wanted to wheel myself through
the pain, but I couldn't and I had to be
(20:12):
wheeled out of there, and I was in surgery.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Two days later.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I went in for injection to try to see if
that would maybe it was just bulging and had images
and you couldn't really tell.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
And then the next day he had to do.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Surgery and he told me postop, he said, you would
have never been able to endure this. There's so much debris,
just lacerating nerves.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Were you like at the edge and you didn't know it?
Of the stage.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, my crew normally puts a piece of white tape
along the front edge, and this was the one time
they forgot and.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Oh use their air crew user error.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, I still could have gone over the spotlights sometimes
they're just too bright and uh and sometimes I don't
look down. I think I know where I am.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
But uh. Nonetheless, it was.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
How long were you out? Uh?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Well I was, Uh I recovered.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I had three days later I had to be back
on stage for a charity TV show that I had
developed and pushed up the hill.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It was Chittio.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It was a songwriter competition and we taped here in Nashville.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
So uh.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
No, it was it was ten days later. Uh but
uh ten days later I was back on stage, uh
doing that TV show. And then three days after that,
I was back on tour. And I would only go
as far as my surgeon would tell me I could
go before I hurt myself.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Pain. I've do it. I've had lots. I've had. I
injured my.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Spinal cord once a mountain biking accident. I ran into
a tree. Uh so it just developed a lot of
problems with my cervical spining.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
So I've been through a lot of surgeries.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I've been through the back of my neck five times
and through here about four or five times. Uh, just
buttressing up my cervical spine. So I've you know, I've
managed to deal with pain with just some adville, but uh,
you know, when it's in the lumbar, it's it's something different.
(22:36):
And I remember thinking about canceling. I had to cancel
shows just to have the surgery. But I thought about
the other ones that I had coming up, but I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
You just got through them. Yeah, what kind of kid
were you? Were you a studious kid, great kid, great
jet everybody.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Obviously, yes, But did you I feel like you're talking
about books. I always like to read books, even as
a kid. Is that what you were into? Did you
read a lot of books?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I was a terrible student, way awful. I wanted to
be a good student, but you know, I just couldn't
figure out how to take notes and get to the
homework and do the homework well. And then I fall behind,
and then it's even harder fall behind. Ninth grade I failed.
(23:24):
I repeated the ninth grade. Tenth grade I was going
to fail. I had to go through summer school to
get into the eleventh grade. Eleventh grade I was going
to fail, but I was eighteen by then, and I
dropped out and went into construction, And within a year
I knew just what a mistake it was, and I
(23:46):
started then doing everything I could to fill in the
gaps make up for the lost time. So then I
started reading nonfiction mostly for a long time. It would
have been history books, biography, self help books, the Platinum
(24:06):
raine Bow, this business of music, all those things that
would have helped it work, psychology books, you know, seven
Habits of highly effective People, everything like that I could find.
I got a program that was on my laptop and
it was all punctuation. I just I just ate it
(24:29):
up because I've I've felt like I can go at
my own pace now and and I was able to.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Learn that learn that stuff more slowly.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Do you feel like it, Adhd? Because you're really smart. Obviously,
I don't need to know what you read. I can
just tell my talking with you, I mean, and knowing
you a bit that we know each other now, like
I have to prepare myself to keep up with you,
like you have a brilliantly fast mind.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Talking this, Well, no, it just feels like they didn't
know how to teach you.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Well, I didn't have a lot of help at home.
My mother wasn't a good student. She wasn't educated beyond
high school. My dad, you know, really tired, so he
wasn't going to come home from you know, being on
the job at five am and do homework. He would
help a little bit with math. He was really good.
(25:31):
So the support there wasn't at home, and the discipline
wasn't there. I could get away with skirting it. So
as I felt more and more lost, I was able
to just get by without anyone at home saying show
me your homework.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
When did you know you wanted to do music? Then?
Like how old?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I started harmonica when I was thirteen, and then the
guitar at fifteen, and by the time I was seventeen,
I was deciding on whether I was going to join
the Air Force and work my way into the space
program or be a musician. I had singers grades, so
I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near an airplane, much less
(26:17):
a rocket.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Did you do Harmonica? I accompany your brother? Was harmonica?
Did you play that to accompany your brother? Well?
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Actually, my brother Brian was already playing, and then I
just played it everywhere I went. We'll go down to
the pool hall. My friend said, hey, let's throw down
the hat and then people put money in there. And
then by the time I got the guitar, I got
a harmonica race and I was just out in the
neighborhood playing the three songs I knew for everyone who
(26:46):
would listen.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
My brother Kevin had the band and they didn't have.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
A bass player, but the lead guitar player, Gavin Van,
would set up an extra mind microphone and I get
up and pretend I was plugged in and sing harmonies
around my brother. But I wasn't playing that much harmonica
with them.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And usually the younger brothers have to like pick up
a bass because the older brothers playing guitar.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I became the bass player, you did, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Do you still play bass at all? Now?
Speaker 4 (27:20):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Could you fall back into it?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Yeah? I could.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I'd have to lose the uh, I grow my nails
out longer to use his picks and they wouldn't work
on bassh So yeah, I've I've done it a little bit,
you know, in the studio, just getting apart.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, what kind of studio artists, are you because obviously
you're a great musician, Therefore you obvious.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's obvious anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I had never seen you live until the Opry was
shut down for COVID, and I hosted the Opry all
during those empty shows, and you played, and Darius played,
you guys played, and so there's like seven I us
there in the whole building, and I watched you with
nobody around, just shred a guitar. And I had no
idea you were such a proficient guitar player. I knew
you could play. I know you played lead parts because
(28:11):
I'd seen that, but I had no idea you were.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It looked like to me such an advanced guitar player.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now I play rudimentary guitar, and so I was kind
of blown away at your guitar ability. So I would
imagine you're in a studio. Are you a perfectionist? Are
you right alongside the whoever's producing the record and going okay,
I don't think this is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
No, But I'm producing my own records and since ninety
nine or something, and I'm not a perfectionist, and I
don't even like the word I think. I think excellence
is the better goal. You can achieve excellence. Perfection as
an accident. You know, it happens because you get lucky
(28:52):
during being trying to be excellent. So I don't strive
for perfection ever. But I know what my ear likes.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
So if my ear's not liking it, it's not excellent.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It sounds like that's the same idea you had with
that record, that first record, when you're like, hey, I
know what country music fans like. I know what I
like as a country music fan, and so we're going
to make that kind of record, And I want to
go back to you and better Man being added out
of the box, which for those that don't know, that's
a station programmer will go, I'm going to add that
(29:31):
to my playlist immediately before it's even actually asked to
be added. It's like the earliest you can get a
song added. So this LA programmed record says that your
label switches over. They now promoted. How fast until that
song actually became something you were known for or that
was played on the radio.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Well it went to number one, It was seventeen.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Weeks in today's time, that's pretty quick. How quick. Was
it that? Back then?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
It was long?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
It was yeah, you know, it took its time, you know,
it was it was steady enough. But I think back then,
you know, back then, you could get a song up
to number one and back you know, you could get
almost five a year, which I don't think.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know, you can't do that now like you can
now if you're like Morgan Wallen, And that's so different
than anything else that's happened in my career in Nashville,
Like that's super super fast, but yeah, that's crazy. You
could do that back then, and you think seventeen weeks
was slow back.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Then, Well that's the impression I.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Got because they were telling you because you didn't know
what was really fast.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Because the because people who would interview me after you say,
were you worried it wasn't gonna get there? I mean
it took a while. Things like that that just you know,
getting grained. Oh, it took a while. But I don't
I don't think I remember enough about that moment in
my career two to remember anything specifically where other records
(31:04):
are doing it in ten weeks, yeah, I just took seventeen.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I don't remember really.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That song as it was climbing, like could you feel
more people singing along? And or depending if that your
shows are not the crowds getting bigger.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, we were playing bars and the bars were packed.
And CMT had a lot to do with that because
I wanted to get a video right away and came
up with a plan with Mary Handlton at RCA to
do that and have it ready to go instantly, you know,
when the single was released. So the video TNN and
(31:39):
Nashville Network was smoking hot back then.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
We were all watching it. Ever a country fan.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So being on the Ralph Emery Show, Ralph was saying
things like I like you, and I think you're going
to be around a while, you know, And I.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Think that helped a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I was getting on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carr
and Jay Leno when he guested, you know, I was.
I was really lucking into all the other you know,
ancillary uh, you know platforms you could be on. And
(32:17):
the Wall Street Journal a reporter came out and rode
the bus for a few days and did a future
article in that. USA Today did one and I think
it was on the cover of the entertainment section. So
the video TNN all those other things.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
We were feeling it.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, and uh, you know I was.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was starting to get you know, spots opening for
the Juds and Alabama Dwight Yoakam. I did a month
out on the road with him, so it was it
was it was clear that even if it didn't go
to number one, that it was.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Going to have a big impact.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Can you give me a Johnny Carson story.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Johnny Carson, I think the second time I did the
show with him, I wanted to do something that used
my full vocal range. And we had been playing on
the road kind of a Hank Junior version of ain't
misbehaving but I would. I would go up and sing
(33:24):
real high toward the end of the song. And so
we did that on there, and when I got over
to the couch, Johnny said, Wow, you have a false
setto you could throw a cat through.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Wow, I am.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
That's one compliment I will never forget.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's got to be crazy feeling to go ten years
in bars to doing the Tonight Show. Were you able
to have awareness of how cool it was to be
getting those big moments or were you so in it
that it was difficult to actually understand or be happy
about it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I think I was mostly overwhelmed by the workload because
I was doing nine cities in a row one day off,
eight in a row one time, we did twenty one
in a row day off, and calling into radio stations
in the morning and in the afternoon drive time, and
meeting and greeting thirty to one hundred people you know
(34:23):
before the show before Yeah, every show it was I was.
I was constantly worried about being able to sing.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Because if you're tired or sick, you don't have a voice.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, or if you talk all day yeah. And people
don't think talking is that hard, But imagine singing a
song that only has three notes and singing it all
day long. You know, you may be able to sing
some other notes, but those three notes are done. And
talking is that way, especially because a lot of us,
especially guys, tend.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
To go down here. You know, you don't talk.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Michael Jackson's spoke up here because it took some of
the strain off his vocal cords.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Wait, is that really why? Yeah, I mean it makes sense.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It's absolutely why I went to his voice coach. I've
been trying to find someone in Houston for years, and
I had worked with some voice coaches. I knew I
didn't have a good warm up routine, and I thought
I have better technique take the strain off, but no
(35:29):
one was helping me. And when Lisa and I got married,
and I told her and she took me to Seth Riggs,
who was the top guy in LA.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
He was Michael's guy.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And he didn't tell me anything about Michael, but he said,
you know, whenever you're talking, just don't talk down here
so much. Try to stay up and here and make
it easier. And Michael just took.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
That all the way up, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But Seth had a guy, a young guy who was eighteen,
Steve Real. I told Seth I really wanted someone to
go on the road with me. And he calls Steve
in and Steve comes in, Hey, and he goes Steve,
mister Black is looking for someone to work with him
on the road, warm him up, show him some you know,
some techniques it'll help take the strain off.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
And are you interested in doing that?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
He sure, he goes, Well the house fifteen hundred dollars
a week. Seth and I didn't even talk money, but
he just negotiated for me, and Steve goes, sure, and
he goes, he goes, you know, mister Black's a country singer,
and so to fit in with his entreprows, you may
I ask you to take the earring off.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
You want to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, sure, that was it And and Steve spent the
next twelve years on the road with me, singing in
the band and working with me when I had trouble,
if I if I was sick, he would give me
some you know, specific type of warm up to get
through that. And you know, if I was singing something
(37:04):
on stage and making it harder than it had to be,
after the show, he'd say, you know, when you do that,
if you do this vowel instead to get up to
your high note and then switch, it's much easier to
get up there. And it just it saved my sanity,
It saved my voice, gave me longevity I don't think
(37:25):
I would have had, and it just made everything easier.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
What'd you follow up after Better Man.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
A Better Man? And then Killing Time?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Did that one feel even bigger?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, well it was stepping off, you know, already on
the first floor, so Killing Time shot up there. Better
Man and Killing Time were the number one and two
singles of the year, which hadn't happened in thirty four years.
The last time was Hank Senior with Callija and Your
(37:59):
Cheating Heart, which I sing in the bars a million times.
And uh, and I remember thinking, you know, I was
careful not to pat myself on the back and break
my arm doing it, you know. But but I took
that ego trip that was I had a historical connection to,
(38:20):
you know, one of the greatest country artists songwriters of
all time. And uh, and I felt it. I mean
I I felt the significance of that it was written about.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
And uh. And it was like I'm here now, I'm
I'm I have my place.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You felt like you arrived. Yeah, after Killing Time, Yeah,
what was next? Uh?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Next I think was Nobody's home and then uh walking
away and then nothing's news.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
The Bobby cast will be right back. Mm hmm. That's
a pretty epic beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Five long. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
And they always about one.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Not all on the on the the same chart. We
had I think three charts back then, so RCA counted
them all as number ones.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
If it makes it.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
On one chart, that's that's good enough. And so it
was billed as five number one singles on a debut album,
which had never happened in any genre, and that kind
of it.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
It just.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
It sort of gives you an historical position that makes
you a news item. So from there, you know, it's
just more and more stories, and uh, and things just
kept picking out.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
How'd you meet your wife?
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Uh, well, it's a great story and you'll be to
read that story next summer in a book and something.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Are you writing a book?
Speaker 4 (40:05):
I'm writing it?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah you are, Yeah, give me, give me a Brevie version.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
She and her mom were in Houston doing press for
one of Lisa's movies on CBS, and someone at TV
station said, you know, I've got tickets to the Clint
Blacks show. It was New Year's Eve, if you'll want them,
and they took the tickets. She had already heard about
(40:30):
me because her manager, Herb Nanis, was partners with Stan Moress,
who was KT's manager, who I knew because I'd toured
with KT, and he and I were like Dean and Jerry.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
We were a comedy show everywhere we went.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And uh, and he gave Lisa a tape and said,
listen to this guy.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
You know you love him.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So now they come to the show, somebody with my
management company brings her backstage. We sell hello briefly, and
then about ten days later, Uh, we're taping a an
Opry anniversary show. It's a TV special and uh, it
(41:10):
was a night I was inducted as a member. Before
the show, I had a specials Fred Rappaport came back
to my dressing room and said, I have Lisa Hartman's
phone number, and he's about to give it to me,
and he pulls it back when I reach for it
and says, but I'm not going to give it to
you unless you promise me you're going to call her.
(41:32):
So I promised, and uh, and I called her right away.
I was going to be in La to do the
tonight show and I had one night off. We went
to dinner and we were married ten months later.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Did you move out there?
Speaker 4 (41:47):
I did. I didn't. I kept a toothbrush out there.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yes, you're out there a bunch, But you didn't love
about no mail? No mail.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
She was always doing movies.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
She did about sixty year we met, I think, and uh,
and so I would up out there if she was working,
or she would be in Nashville if she weren't.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Did you ever take a break? Yes?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah, when my first greatest hits came out.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
How long was the break?
Speaker 4 (42:14):
A year and a half. I worked a little, but
not like previously.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
How did you do on that break?
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I did fine?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
He did? He liked it.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I needed a break, you know, we were doing one
hundred and fifty cities and all the other stuff a
year at least, so.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
To get burnt out or did you get tired? They're
two different things. Which was it?
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I think I was worn out and RCA said, you know,
we want to take a break from releasing albums and
put out the greatest hits. And I was relieved, and
you know, I wanted to spend more time with Lisa.
It was the mid nineties, and I think that's when
we went over to France and Italy for five weeks.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And probably have never been able to do that, because
five weeks that's a significant amount of time. So to
be able to go anywhere for it, right, was that
totally different and like revitalizing to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I was able to completely detach, which I hadn't detached
from work since nineteen eighty you know, when I started
playing the bars, everything I did was to get another gig,
to play somewhere, to make enough money for gas and
guitar strings. You know, the food I was eating was
the cheapest food you could get. I'd go to Wendy's
(43:40):
and buy a bowl of chili, and I'd get the
little sauce cups for my tray and I'd fill up
like ten of them, would ketch up, and then as
my chili bowl emptied, I'd add ketchup stir it in,
so by the time I got to the bottom of
the bowl it was mostly ketchup. But I only had
(44:00):
to buy one bowl of chili.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Well, that's what makes you appreciate the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, Like, I think for me, what I like about
the success that I've had is I know what it's
like to not have success. I think that's what's kept
me not only grounded and even what is grounded when
you're a weirdo doing a creative job, Like, I don't
know that you're ever really grounded anyway, but I think
knowing what it's like not having it has made having
it that much more satisfying. And also it keeps me
(44:27):
on my toes because I know it could be taken
away at anytime.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I feel that way about the post RCA years. You know,
when when my deal with RCA was up, they were
they were done with me, you know, they didn't like
me writing my own songs and and pestered me about
that a lot, and and uh and so Delauney wasn't
interested in continuing, and I was happy to go. But
(44:55):
all the other major labels I talked to had the you,
we'll find you songs and will have them produced the
way they need the sound to be on the radio.
This would have been the early two thousands. So I
walked away from that and uh and just became an
independent artist and uh so radio was over for me then,
(45:17):
and uh and and I really learned over the years
to appreciate what those RCA years did for me, because
I've been able to tour all this time.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I can tour the way I want.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I have three busses in a truck and a great crew,
great band, and and I I think, you know, those
RCA years being bookended by the club days and then
the no major label, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Pushing your music.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I think I appreciate every little thing that happens more
than I might have.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Have like three questions. Do you remember the first award
you won? Yes? What was it?
Speaker 4 (46:04):
It was the Horizon Award, which was.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
The best New Artist.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, yeah, and so that would have been what year ninety?
Speaker 3 (46:10):
It wasn't eighty nine?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
And do you know who you were up against?
Speaker 4 (46:15):
I think I think it was maybe Kathy Matteya.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Did you think it win going into it?
Speaker 4 (46:25):
I didn't think about it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I was I was the reluctant hoper, you know when
it came to awards.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
Like I really hope I do, but stop hoping.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Do you have a speech prepared?
Speaker 4 (46:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (46:42):
No, But I had one line prepared, which was, I
feel like I'm stepping into a painting I've been looking
at all my life and it and it was everyone
I'm looking at as the people I've been listening to
on the radio or watching on heat Holord TNN, you know.
Uh so I'm looking out at uh at you know,
(47:06):
my my musical heroes and uh and it really it
really rang true. And I think I added that, you know,
I feel like I'm in it now, I'm in the
painting with them. I think I was careful how I
worded that I'm the same as you.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Uh. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I didn't want to be too self aggrandizing, but I
knew I had crossed a line. I was driving past
the bar I used to play in Houston when I
was home. Uh and uh And in an instant, it's
like a whole paragraph just shoots through your mind in
(47:48):
an instant. I Uh, I saw a scene play out
of me going into that bar then and now, and
I knew going into a bar in Houston would never
be the same for me. And I crossed the line.
And I remember feeling a little bit remorseful. I got
(48:13):
what I wanted, but I lost something.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was a people watcher and now I was watched,
and so it was. There was nothing bitter or mournful
about it, but I remember I remember lamenting for a moment.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
That's gone that part of my life.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Was it ever hard being famous?
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Oh? Yeah, yeah. It's not a normal thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I mean, I mean you can run into people here
at the grocery store who see people like us all
the time, and it's nice, you know, But you know,
if I go back home where they're not seeing people
like us all the time, I'm you know, I'm an
event sometimes in it, and you know, people have you know, shrieked,
(49:09):
you know, oh my god, I can't believe I'm seeing you,
you know. And I've learned to live in that skin
now and and find ways to be comfortable when unusual
moments happened. But you know, eighty nine, ninety ninety one,
ninety two, ninety three, I mean, there were years where
(49:33):
I'd look back and go, I was pretty cool, I
had it together, and then I go I'd look back
and I go, no, I really didn't, but now I do.
And then years would go by and I'd go, I
really didn't. And then you know, and it just kept
happening where you know, I would realize more and more
(49:53):
that I'm still adjusting. And when I thought I was calm,
cool and collected, I may have been cool at times,
but I wasn't calm and I wasn't collected. And the
biggest fear, it is probably the same with you, is
you don't ever want to make anyone feel bad. You
(50:14):
don't ever want to make anyone feel like they're intruding.
So you know, there was a period there where I
was actually worried about ear lobes being ripped off because
they've been grabbed, and I've been grabbed in places they
don't like grabbing. And so you start to become uptight
if you feel like you're suddenly in a crowd that
(50:37):
wants to touch you. And and so if I thought suddenly,
now the attention's on me and I could suddenly find
myself in a crowd, I would become uptight and uh.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
And it took years to.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Get rid of that feeling. And also things calm down.
I think as people get older, which my audience primarily is, they.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Behave a little better.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
But it was, it was crazy, and it was everywhere
I went was an event, because I didn't have any
time off to go somewhere that wasn't an event. So, uh,
it was every room I walked into, it was, oh,
he's here, Clint Black's here. And you know, unless you
(51:30):
thrive on attention. I like it when I'm singing. I
hope you'll pay attention while I sing to you or
trying to make you laugh or you know it's okay,
and and uh, that kind of attention.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
But unless you really I think, unless you.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Really thrive, and I know there are some who who
just walk into a room and they feel like a star.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
I don't feel like that. I don't.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
I don't have that that feeling. I want to walk
into a room and be amongst people and not.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
You know, above them, you know, And.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Probably sounds self serving to say it, but I tried
my best to treat people the way I would want
to be treated and to try to be a normal person.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Do you write a lot of music with your daughter?
Not a lot.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
I was careful not to do too much because I
want her to learn the craft by writing with other writers.
So she's going down to music Row now and doing
co writes.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
And what do you think about her doing music?
Speaker 4 (52:47):
I love to me it's whatever makes her happy, you know.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Lisa would joke, don't you want to be a veterinarian
or something? And and for me it was just, you know,
if you really want to do this, you know, then
then you have to h it has to be this
or nothing else. And so once she made her mind
up and she took a gap year from Belmont after
(53:15):
two years that we all knew would be the end of.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
You know, school Belmont.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
So we agreed that I would create a homeschooling artist
development program for her and I would be.
Speaker 4 (53:30):
Dean Dad in it. She would have to listen to
me again.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
And and then it was, uh, you know, push and
push and push until until I felt like I've pushed enough.
My pushing won't help you anymore. And then, you know,
I just came to her and your mom. I said,
(53:55):
I think it's time to throw Lily into the deep
end of the pool. And called a couple of my buddies,
you know, Rusty Gaston and Clay Bradley and you know,
and said, hey, you know, I need some advice. You know,
where's the best pool. I didn't have to say much.
(54:17):
I just I just wanted to pick their brains. And
they took it from there. They said, tell her to
call us, they both said that, and and so she
called him. She went in for that you know, high
Nerve meeting and uh, and they started introducing her to
young writers her age and uh, and that was it.
(54:40):
It was, you know, I'm still here with advice, but
this is this is.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Your pool now.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Before you came in, we were talking about that back
on the black Top tour. And do you still play
all the songs? Do you have any hits you don't play, Oh.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, you do?
Speaker 4 (54:58):
I do? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (54:59):
I well, you do what you do? Play all the
songs or you have some you don't play.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
I have some I don't play.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
And it varies, but I can only do about twenty
two songs in a show, and then it becomes too long.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
When Lisa and.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Lily were on the road with me, we would do more,
but they were coming and going in different wardrobe.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
And but you know, twenty two songs.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
I had thirty one top tens, yeah, and twenty two
number ones. And so I want to do some a
couple of deep cuts. There's a couple of you know,
barn burners like tuckered Out that we need to do.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
What must you play? Give me the five songs you
must play every show?
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Oh, better Man, Killing Time, good run of bad Luck,
nothing but the tail lights every show.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
You're gonna do those? For sure, you're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
Those, Oh yeah, because I think people would be a
said if you didn't do those exact ones.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Summer's Coming is one, I feel like, you know, and
the ones that usually lose outer ballads because you can
only do so many ballads in most shows.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Man, what a problem. You have too many hits? That's
a long way from the.
Speaker 4 (56:17):
Bar, man, trust me, I know that is a long
way from the bar.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
We've done this the other way where I was in
that seat, not at the same house. But you've interviewed
me and so tables are turned. Have you sat for
many long form, hour long interviews.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
I don't think so. I did Sarah Evans podcast.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
And my manager's right over there. He keeps track of
what I'm doing. I can tell you where I'm going.
I can't tell you where I've been. It's this weird thing.
And I have got this Google calendar and I can
look at it.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
What kind of calendar person are you?
Speaker 4 (57:08):
Well? What do you mean, Well, I have the I
have the one on my laptop and on my phone.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Is everything in it?
Speaker 4 (57:14):
And everything is in it?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Do you follow it to the dot? I mean I do.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
I live by it, like my calendar is a massive
part of my everyday life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I have to have a calendar, and I have to
be I'm just I'm one of those early people.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
I'm early. I have to look at my.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Calendar, and then I go and then I study the
Google map, and I go down the street level and I.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
Drove over here virtually before I came over son, because
I'm very anxious. I don't want to miss a turn
and be late. It starts to wear on me.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
You know you were, and I say, this is another
person that's very early all the time. You were very
early here.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
I love that, thanks, because some people not as early,
Some would say late, a little oh disrespectful, I feel all.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
I think, if you're not fifteen minutes earlier or late.
And my dad was that way, and me and one
other brother was that way, and the other two brothers.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Were the opposite. And we would tell them tea times
that were like an hour and a half earlier than
they were, and they'd still be late.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
I got into that with my wife a little, because
she is she's not a late person, but she's definitely
not overly prompt like I am. And so I would
start to tell her a little later. Then she would
find out that I was telling her later generally, so
she'd start stalling on that time.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
So then I had to move it back even more.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
So then I'm telling her like an hour and a
half early, and eventually she catches up with it and
it became a pretty a sore spot. And I'm early
everywhere except when I'm with my wife. I was talking
to the driver at a driver taking me back to
the airport from Vegas, and I'm just curious about people
in general. And I was talking to her about her
job and how long she'd been in Vegas, and I said,
(59:00):
are most people late when they go to the airport
from Vegas? Because we had been there for work, but
we were staying in a casino, and she was like, yeah,
most people are late in the latest are couples? Couples
are always late because I always fighting about something, always
fighting to be late.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
So is your wife early late? What's that? What's her style?
Speaker 4 (59:17):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (59:17):
No, she's she's always rushing to get out the door.
And h our daughter is, Lily is always rushing to
get out the door. And uh and so now Lily
uses what I always used, Here we go, here we go,
instead of hey, we need to go, you know, because
that can irritate people.
Speaker 4 (59:37):
You know, we need to leave.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
We're running behind, You're gonna make us late. You can't
say that. You can't say any.
Speaker 3 (59:43):
Of those Yeah, I feel like that's here we go
is not effective at all in my house. You have
many brothers, three all boys.
Speaker 4 (59:50):
Yeah, no sisters.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
Wow, that must have been a rough housing house.
Speaker 4 (59:54):
It was, Yeah, it was. Uh. One brother used reason
and logic on me and the other two. Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
One one would seem like he was gonna get physical,
but he wouldn't, and then the other.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
One would Where do you fall in the order?
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I'm the youngest.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Wow, so I was retreating under furniture a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So as the youngest. And you had three older brothers.
Were they ball players? Artists? Well?
Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Like what what was the brother vibel?
Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Like? Uh? Ballplayers? When when we were younger? Uh?
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Uh the oldest brother wasn't musical and the rest of
us were. Uh, the older oldest brother, uh you know,
early on went into construction. We all followed him. One
became a carpenter, Brian Mark You Mark became a foreman,
and Kevin and I worked for Mark as iron workers.
(01:00:52):
Kevin longer than I did, but uh uh you know
we were mostly into music.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
One became a cop. He was a cop for a while,
got into a bad shootout and the guy that pointed
a gun at five deputies and they had to shoot him,
and then Brian, you know, started plugging up holes and
they saved his life. He well lived, but then he
sued them for five years, then the deputies in the department,
(01:01:24):
and it really destroyed his love of policing. Brian was
always the person who would you know, jump out at
a car wreck to try to help people. When he
was in security, he was the first one bullet shots,
whatever was happened, he was the first one onseene. He
was just that way, and and when that shooting happened,
(01:01:48):
it it changed everything.
Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
What about your mom and dad? What were they like?
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Dad was very stoic, very quiet, dry wit and h
My mom was Italian, who's still with us, she'll be
ninety next year, very dynamic. So you can imagine with
four boys in the house, she was driven to anger
(01:02:14):
a lot, and it would come up in a flash
when she finally have enough of our nonsense, and then
it would disappear in a flash, and just as quickly
she could laugh hysterically. So you know, her wire was
live and ready to go whichever button you pushed. You know,
Mom was ready and she loved being in the mix.
(01:02:38):
If we were playing in bars, you know, being there
having fun, singing along and all of that, and my
dad not at all.
Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
My dad.
Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
We would have backyard parties where my brother's band and
I would be in the backyard playing and barbecuing and
all of that.
Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
My dad had his lounge share with his ice chest
and that was him for the whole night. He was
just he worked so hard every day, you know, getting
up at you know, four fifteen am and going into work.
He was a heavy equipment operator, the tower cranes that
go up above the buildings, and it was intense work.
(01:03:20):
So he came home pretty tired.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Do you think that his personality?
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
And where I come from, a lot of people do
construction jobs or mill jobs, and so there's not a
lot of belief in a job that is art because
it's not secure. There's no real security in any sort
of artistic endeavor. When you come from a rural area
like I did that, people don't tell you can't do it,
but it's really it's kind of a fairy tale, and
(01:03:48):
there's really no consistency in fairy tales. Do you feel
like your dad thought that about music? Like he loved
you guys, and I was like I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
He told me I needed to have a fallback, the consistent,
but he believed in me as a singer, and he
just worried that it wasn't gonna work because it seldom does.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
And there's no roadmap that anyone knows of. I've read
all the books.
Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
You find in any of those books and uh.
Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
So you you just don't you don't know. It's not
like a vocation.
Speaker 4 (01:04:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I was taught how to do iron work, and I
could have done it the rest of my life and
made good, good living.
Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
Uh, you know, if you learn.
Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
He wanted me to learn how to repair air conditioners
because we were in Houston, a lot of need for
that and uh.
Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
And it was always going to be hot, yeah, for
the rest of time. It was going to be hot.
Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
And if it's hot, there's there's work.
Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
And you can learn how to do that work and
then just keep doing it. You can learn how to
do music and you can keep doing it. But you're
not gonna, you know, make the kind of money if
you don't get out of the bars, you're not going
to make the kind of money. And electric would or
you know, the Maytag guy.
Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Would may take.
Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I made good money so with you in commercial Yes, yes,
an he wore uniform so I had to get the
fancy clothes or anything. Well, I really like you as
a person, so I'm I'm super excited that you came
over today.
Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
The feelings mutual. Well, and you're You're a great guy
to kid with. You know, I can say things to
you in a text and I have to worry about
them and taking the wrong way.
Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yeah, I think we're.
Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Cut from a bit of the same cloth, but I
do have to when when you're around. I got to
sit up straight because I know it's coming and I
got to come back or I'll be left in the dust.
Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Well, and that's a that's a good that's a that's
a fun thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Well, it's fun to know you feel that way. Yes,
because I'd like to think I'm smart or witty, uh
and all of that. But you're pretty smart and witty yourself,
you know.
Speaker 4 (01:05:51):
So I'm wearing you.
Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
They're telling me what to say.
Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Funny back, say no coffee, Say no coffee.
Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
All right, you guys go check out the tour.
Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
Back on the Blacktop North American Tour, there's a final
leg in the spring of twenty twenty six. Tickets are
at Clint Black dot com. And you did a killing
time like an anniversary album, didn't you.
Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Yeah? Last year we did the whole album in order.
Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
And did you did you do vinyl on that? Yes?
Do you still sell those?
Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Dang I should have had one of those. Kind of
got an autograph my favorite artist.
Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
I have a manager over there on the tank, ask him.
Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Why, Hey, you did our show with us this year too.
Thank you for that. I told you think you about it,
but it was fun. But you came in. We did,
we do a big show for Saint June. You came
and it was really.
Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Really it's a you know, from the very beginning. Uh,
when Randy Owen called me and said, will you be
involved in our you know, Country Cares for Saint Jude's,
he's kicked all that off. I had met a kid
in South Carolina who came up to me backstage and said, uh,
told me his story. He had cancer, His parents had
(01:06:58):
no means, there was no way to get help where
he lived, and his high school friends had heard about
Saint Jude's and they drove him to Memphis and dropped
him off in front of the hospital. Wow, he walked
in and they cured him.
Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
And so and I had seen a documentary on it.
So when Randy called, it was a it was a
no brainer. Just the fact that they share their research
with everyone. There's there's no you know, proprietary you know ownership.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
That and for me because I was in the hospital
a bunch as a kid and without help because I
didn't have cancer, but i'd rupture my spleen and I
had a lot of internal bleeding. But if it weren't
for organizations, even our church, I don't know that we'd
gotten through it or even got our bills paid after.
And so with at Saint Jude, you know, one of
the things that they do that's so amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Is there's no bill.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
There's no bill, it's food's covered, travels covered, house covered.
And so with that, I think that's why I was
drawn to it to pretty much stay active the whole
year with it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
It is really a fantastic place. I didn't know that
story about the kids South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
And the thing I found out years later was the
hospital opened I think the day I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
That is, I think I know.
Speaker 3 (01:08:20):
It was Jude then it would be really crazy.
Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
I'd go by Saints.
Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
The I know it was the year, but I think
it opened February fourth or third.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Yeah, that, Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
If it's if the hospital started on your birthday period,
then yeah, there's something cosmic happening here.
Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
If not, yeah, just a fun coincidence.
Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Yeah, I mean I'm meeting that kid and uh, Chris
Randy I think would.
Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
Have called me. Yeah, you know, no matter when it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Opened, Mike, any date on that sixty two, February fourth.
Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
That's my birthday?
Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
No way.
Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Yes, that is why I found that out just like
ten years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
And then I forgot that. I knew it. I had to.
I had to get Mike to help verify it.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Mike, will you google if any other famous events happened
on that day, February fourth, nineteen sixty two, any other
and if it's like Hindenburg crashed, it's like.
Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
Bobby Bones waited to be born.
Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
That is literally the first thing that pops up when
you search that. What the opening of Saint Jude?
Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Got it? Is there anything else on that date? First
US helicopter shot down in Vietnam? That's what I thought.
Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, that feels more I had nothing to do you sure,
I'm sure all right? Guys, go check out Clint Live
at Clint Black Clint Get to See Man.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
You too. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
There was a constant flow of people coming by the house.
Even the wife of guitar player in Garth's band and
four other women knocked on my door one morning at
eight am. They said, we just wanted to see if
you were really nice. Said, well, you should have come
by at noon.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Now it's time for episode five forty six with the
great Clint Black. I really like Clint as a person.
In the last couple of years, I've been able to
spend a little more time with Clint. Even at the
ACMs which were on Amazon. He was presenting and I
was doing like the bad second co host job. Why
(00:49):
just going to the crowd. But I was back because
I had to do all of rehearsal, so I had
to sit through the whole show before it went on.
And he was presenting, and so he's back. He was
in my dressing room, which was just a curtained off room.
Wasn't even cool, but he was in and we were
writing jokes for his hit, which I thought was interesting.
He was just writing a joke. I guess he can
do that. He's Clint Black, and so I like Clinton.
(01:12):
He played our million dollar show with this with the
Raging Idiots last year. He's got just so many great
songs and I'm leaving here better man, Jam. This killing
time is killing me.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Jam. We could keep going, but love Clint. He came over.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We talked for over an hour. I did his show,
Talking in Circles his TV show once and that was
super fun, so it was nice for him to come
over and do this. He has extended his back on
the black Top North American Tour with a final twenty
twenty six leg in the spring, so he's on the
road now. He's still tours like crazy. I didn't know
he had like a back issue, like surgery.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The thing I learned is we need to get pillows
just in case people have back issues. Yeah, because he
was like, on my back, you have a pillow. We
didn't have a single pillow. So what I did is
I grabbed like some towels, and I like stuff towels.
This year, I know I gotta do better. Check out
Clint Black dot com. He is one of the sharpest
guys that I've ever met in this business.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Here he is. They're great, Clint Black.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Did you just play cover songs and bars for a while,
Did you go through that normal trajectory?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah? I.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Uh, I guess it was probably if you count the
years after I got my break, when I was still
playing bars for fifty bucks, it was about ten years.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, you start wonder if I'm going about it the
right way.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Maybe you should do air conditioners.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I if I would have had a fallback.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You see, my brother Kevin, we both quit iron working,
and uh uh and I started playing in bar he
and I started playing in bars, and then he left
and went back to ironworking. It's just dependable money. And uh,
I couldn't. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that
iron work anymore. Every day I just thought, why aren't
(03:05):
I singing somewhere? And I had to make the decision
if this is as far as I get, this is
what I'm gonna do, And so there wasn't a way out.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I think that that's part.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Of the reason I, you know, made it through.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You're in the bars for ten years.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
At any point, did you think maybe I won't even
be a front man, because there are other paths you
can play guitar in a band.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, but I wasn't. I played guitar to accompany myself.
I never set out to be good at guitar. I
wanted to sing and I needed, you know, I needed
this simple guitar part to do at least that. So
I wasn't on a path to be in a sideman.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And that that never like fell in like maybe this
is what I'll do. I want to stay in music,
but it never was. I think I'll go be a
part of a band.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Then when I was in the band with my brother, uh,
there was uh. There were too many conflicts, too much
disagreement and uh and there was not one person who
could ultimately decide on anything. So when I came out
of that band and went solo, I knew, if I
(04:16):
ever have a band again, it'll be one I put
together and and I get to say what happens?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
So then, what was the moment or what? Why did
you get your break? So you're playing in the bars?
But when did it change? Did you move to Nashville first?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I would There was no way I was going to
move to Nashville first. It was too intimidating, too uh,
it was too much of an enigma, and I knew
I had to have a manager. So what finally made
the uh the switch for me?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
What?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Uh? I was reading all.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
These books self Help, music Business, The Platinum Rainbow and
all these things, trying to figure out how am I
going to do this because what I'm doing isn't working.
And I found a book called Time Management, Work Smarter,
not Harder, and I followed the exercise in the book
of laying out goals, and under each goal you write
(05:14):
down every activity you can imagine would lead you to
that goal. And then every day your job is to
be checking off as many activities as you can, one
of which was.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Make a demo.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So I had this gig that I was going to
get and it was twice what I was earning playing
solo gigs. It was one hundred dollars a night. And
in order for me to get that solo gig, I
had to do this party for them with a band.
So I found a band, and by the time we
(05:53):
got to a rehearsal with the band, the guitar player
that was in the band had left and Hayden Nicholas
was now the guitar player for this gig. And so
Hayden was great, best guitar player I'd ever played with.
So we gravitated one another. He said, what are you doing?
I'm trying to make demos. He said, I have an
(06:13):
eight track recorder and we can make some demos. I'll
charge you one hundred and fifty bucks a song, and
if you get a record deal out of it, it
goes up to three hundred retroactively.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
So you got to pay him more if I.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Get a record deal. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
We struck that deal and started making demos, and I
needed the demo to find a manager. I knew a
record promoter in town because he managed Managing Quotation managed
me for you know, ten minutes, but he was a
legitimate record promoter with platinum records all over his office walls, so.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I knew he knew people.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And the first demo we finished was Nobody's Home, and
took that to him, and he took me to Bill Hamm,
who I knew was zz Tops manager, and that was my.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Break and he believed in you. He heard it and
believed it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, Yeah, he heard that and two other songs from
the first album we had demo. By the time I
met him, we had that song maybe Nothing's News and
winding Down and so yeah, he heard those and said
he wanted to hear more. So Hayden and I feverishly
(07:36):
went to work making more demos.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
What were you wearing then? Do you have a look? Uh?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, I had basically the same look. I didn't have
a cowboy hat. The one I had was trashed, and
I couldn't even really afford guitar strings. The guy at
the guitar store sold him to me as cheaply as
he could. And I went through a lot of guitar
strings playing four to seven hours a night, you know,
(08:04):
and sweat right through them, you know, So I'd have
to have.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Two sets per night for two guitars.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So between that and gas, I mean, I was, I
really until I got the record deal, I.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Couldn't afford to buy a new hat.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And as soon as I could afford a new hat,
and I got some new shirts out of the deal,
you know, I got I got a nice cowboy hat,
kind of like the one you see behind here. But
but it wasn't until I met this guy, Doug Eastman
with the Waco Hat company, who said, I'm gonna make
(08:45):
you a hat that really fits your head. And he
put a device on my head and it printed out
the shape of my head, and and and he made
in the brim was about three quarters of an inch
shorter than the hat I was wearing, And as soon
as I put it on, I knew, this is this
(09:07):
is my hat.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Did you stay with that type of hat forever?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Forever? Still today? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
In fact, I still have that hat. And the guy
down in Texas that makes my hats now it's it's
in his office.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
It's the model. So every time they make me a
new hat, they go by that.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
When did you move to Nashville? How long?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Ninety ninety one?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
You didn't move here till ninety one?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
No, even though you were in the famous class of
eighty nine.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, yep, but I was here all the time.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But he didn't move here.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
But it was it was I never got home. I
was in a hotel here all the time. So finally
I wanted to stay in Texas. I recorded most of
the albums in Texas, but I never got home. I
had my place there, and when I got a little
bit of money, you know, I got a better place,
(10:03):
and I just never saw it.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
What was it then that made you move here? If
you were doing just finding with a place down.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
There, just knowing every time we had two or three
days off, the buses ended up here and I could
fly home one day, be home a day, fly back
the next to get on the bus.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
And I wasn't gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So I found a place here up on Old Hickory
Lake on the north side.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
And lived there for a while.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And the people it was just it was a long
drive to get here, and I was coming here all
the time.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And you mean from Old Hickory Lake, I mean from Houston, Houston.
That's a long drive too.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, but on the north side of Old Hickory Lake.
And I was in a little cove between Johnny Cash's
house and Roy Orbison's house.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I was.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I was way up there, and so the drive back
and forth was killing me. But also there was a
constant flow of people coming by the house, coming by
the dock and you know, yelling up and coming and
knocking on the door.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But even uh, the wife of guitar player and Garth's
band and four other women knocked on my door one
morning at eight am. I had to get I had
to get out of bed to come answer the door.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And uh, what would they say?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They said, we just wanted to see if you were
really nice. I said, we usually come by at noon?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Did you get a fence? How do you stop that lead?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
You know, Uh, you couldn't get a fence.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It was against the rags and uh. And you know
there were people that were drunk that were just coming
up in their boats. And I'm from Houston, so you know,
my brother was a cop. I worked in security. I
had to study crime and in order to do that job,
so that concerned me. If it were just fans that
(12:07):
were harmless, okay, just please don't wake me up. But
I was, you know, I was thinking of the old
security mind, that there's too many people come into my house.
But that wasn't. That wasn't when I moved to town.
It was the drive. I just couldn't take it.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That album in eighty nine, Killing Time. How many of
those songs did you have stashed away in those sessions
that you were writing before.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I don't know before, well, Nothing's News was old. I
was twenty two when I wrote that. Winding Down was
probably wrote it in eighty five Live and Learn. Probably
nineteen eighty five. That's that's probably winding Down, Nothing's News,
(13:02):
Live and Learn. There were other songs that would end
up that I'd written, like when I was eighteen, Like
the next album, Loving Blind, I wrote when I was eighteen,
state of Mind, which was a big hit. On my
fourth album I wrote when I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Do you think it was weird when you came to
town and there were co writes?
Speaker 4 (13:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
No, because I'd already been doing that. I've been co
writing with Hayden, co writing with Sheik Russell, and so
I liked that idea. But I had to make sure
and write songs by myself so that it didn't become
a crutch. So I would have something I'd think I'm
going to get with Hayden wrote, you know, and then
(13:42):
I'd say, you know, I really need to write another
one by myself. So songs like a Bad Goodbye and
others I just made myself. It's more fun to write
with someone else. There's a lot more juice in the room.
There's laughs you can have in between, and writing by
yourself is it can be exciting when you're making progress
(14:05):
and you come up with great ideas, but not a
lot of laughs.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You know, unless you're really crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, which, yeah, you got to be crazy to even
do this job. You got to be really crazy to
be laughing alone. As you're writing a song. Yeah, on
that eighty nine album, with your first record, did you
have an expectation of success or was it you're blind
to it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Let's just see what happens.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
No, I had an expectation.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I'm a country fan first, and we watched everything that
country music would feed us, and we listened to all
the stations and thank you so much, thank you Morgan.
We consumed everything there was to consume. So we were
country fans and we knew what we liked. So if
(14:52):
I've had something I liked and my dad liked it
and my brothers liked it, I knew that other people
like us would like it. But you don't really know,
and I knew. I didn't really know. I just thought
I knew, and so there has to be at least
an ounce of humility and that knowing.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
But I believed it. I believe that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
People were really going to like those songs. I knew
we had the wrong first single. What was the first
thingle It was straight from the factory, and I knew
that was wrong as Western swing and I'm thinking of
these big cities. We went into kz LA in Los Angeles,
big station, Bob Gara Production of the program manager, and
(15:44):
we're playing him straight from the factory. At the end
of the first course, second chorus, really he had stopped
and he said, if you get that into the top twenty,
I can add it. And that isn't what we wanted
to hear.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You wanted to hear it go right away.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, so I had.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I had strong doubts about it, but I had a
cassette in my pocket and I didn't know the rules,
so I just took a chance. Carson Schreiber, the promotion
guy for that region of RCA, wasn't going to hit
me over the head later, and I said, can I
play you another song?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
You know, Bob, And he.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Said yeah, So put on a Better Man, And at
the end of the first chorus he hit stop and
said I'll add.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That out of the box. No way, and we left
and I grant Carson.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I said, we have to call Joe Glatti and tell
him we have to change the first single. And he
called Joe and Joe changed the first single right then
and there, and Better Man went number one.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Sarah Evans over she was in one of those chairs
over there. She was rocking back and forth in it,
and she wiped out.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
They have video of that we do with a coffee
in her hand.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Okay, well I would.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Text me that video later so I can send to
her with commentary.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I was so scared when it happened, because you just
didn't want her to be hurt. And she somehow fell
and held the coffee. It's like when somebody falls or
jumps in the lake and they keep.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Their beer up. Yeah, she did that with the coffee.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I mean, she wiped out, had it And I'm at
a crossroads and I'm like, well, I like, Sarah, do
I poke at her or or do I call.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Nine one one as soon as you know she's not injured.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And she was awesome about it, and yeah, she was like, yeah,
I shouldn't have been rocking back in the chair, but
she wiped out.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It was awkward for a second.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
She's a regular.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Person, and you know, I've seen things happen to irregular
persons who think that they I guess they think they're
supposed to be perfect.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, and they can't laugh at themselves.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, I thought she was super cool about it. Yeah,
I was worried. Also.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
It was like I saw kat Oslin fall down on
stage a show down in Florida.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, she fell down.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
She's in high heels and a tight skirt and she's
laying on the floor and she signals the band and
the vand stops and she's lying on her side looking
at the audience and she says, I bet showler, wondering
how I'm gonna get from here.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Have you ever fallen off stage? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Off off stage?
Speaker 3 (18:35):
What happened?
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Injury?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Surgery?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Really?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I fell off the stage in Canada in twenty fifteen,
and I turned it into a jump because I realized
I was going so I kind of I went ahead
and jumped instead of just teetering over.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
But I couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We were in a marina and concrete floor, and I
couldn't see the ground because of the spot lights and
and so I wasn't able to time the bending of
the knees shock absorption, and I landed on my right
heel with a straight leg and it ruptured a disc
(19:14):
in my lumbar, and I knew something was wrong. I
didn't know how bad, but I got back on stage.
I kept got right back, kept singing.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Adrenaline kept you up.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I was, I wasn't playing guitar on that song. Put
yourself in my shoes and uh. I just got up
and finished the show, and I iced it all the
next day, which was a day off, and then I
had two more shows. I got through those shows. My
right leg was numb. I almost fell a few times
(19:49):
just because I couldn't really feel my leg. And then
I got on a a plane and went to flew
to LA and by the time I got to the airport,
I had to request a wheelchair and I hated it.
I just I just I wanted to wheel myself through
the pain, but I couldn't and I had to be
(20:12):
wheeled out of there, and I was in surgery.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Two days later.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I went in for injection to try to see if
that would maybe it was just bulging and had images
and you couldn't really tell.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
And then the next day he had to do.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Surgery and he told me postop, he said, you would
have never been able to endure this. There's so much debris,
just lacerating nerves.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Were you like at the edge and you didn't know it?
Of the stage.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, my crew normally puts a piece of white tape
along the front edge, and this was the one time
they forgot and.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Oh use their air crew user error.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, I still could have gone over the spotlights sometimes
they're just too bright and uh and sometimes I don't
look down. I think I know where I am.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
But uh. Nonetheless, it was.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
How long were you out? Uh?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Well I was, Uh I recovered.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I had three days later I had to be back
on stage for a charity TV show that I had
developed and pushed up the hill.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It was Chittio.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It was a songwriter competition and we taped here in Nashville.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
So uh.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
No, it was it was ten days later. Uh but
uh ten days later I was back on stage, uh
doing that TV show. And then three days after that,
I was back on tour. And I would only go
as far as my surgeon would tell me I could
go before I hurt myself.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Pain. I've do it. I've had lots. I've had. I
injured my.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Spinal cord once a mountain biking accident. I ran into
a tree. Uh so it just developed a lot of
problems with my cervical spining.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
So I've been through a lot of surgeries.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I've been through the back of my neck five times
and through here about four or five times. Uh, just
buttressing up my cervical spine. So I've you know, I've
managed to deal with pain with just some adville, but uh,
you know, when it's in the lumbar, it's it's something different.
(22:36):
And I remember thinking about canceling. I had to cancel
shows just to have the surgery. But I thought about
the other ones that I had coming up, but I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
You just got through them. Yeah, what kind of kid
were you? Were you a studious kid, great kid, great
jet everybody.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Obviously, yes, But did you I feel like you're talking
about books. I always like to read books, even as
a kid. Is that what you were into? Did you
read a lot of books?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I did not.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I was a terrible student, way awful. I wanted to
be a good student, but you know, I just couldn't
figure out how to take notes and get to the
homework and do the homework well. And then I fall behind,
and then it's even harder fall behind. Ninth grade I failed.
(23:24):
I repeated the ninth grade. Tenth grade I was going
to fail. I had to go through summer school to
get into the eleventh grade. Eleventh grade I was going
to fail, but I was eighteen by then, and I
dropped out and went into construction, And within a year
I knew just what a mistake it was, and I
(23:46):
started then doing everything I could to fill in the
gaps make up for the lost time. So then I
started reading nonfiction mostly for a long time. It would
have been history books, biography, self help books, the Platinum
(24:06):
raine Bow, this business of music, all those things that
would have helped it work, psychology books, you know, seven
Habits of highly effective People, everything like that I could find.
I got a program that was on my laptop and
it was all punctuation. I just I just ate it
(24:29):
up because I've I've felt like I can go at
my own pace now and and I was able to.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Learn that learn that stuff more slowly.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Do you feel like it, Adhd? Because you're really smart. Obviously,
I don't need to know what you read. I can
just tell my talking with you, I mean, and knowing
you a bit that we know each other now, like
I have to prepare myself to keep up with you,
like you have a brilliantly fast mind.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Talking this, Well, no, it just feels like they didn't
know how to teach you.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Well, I didn't have a lot of help at home.
My mother wasn't a good student. She wasn't educated beyond
high school. My dad, you know, really tired, so he
wasn't going to come home from you know, being on
the job at five am and do homework. He would
help a little bit with math. He was really good.
(25:31):
So the support there wasn't at home, and the discipline
wasn't there. I could get away with skirting it. So
as I felt more and more lost, I was able
to just get by without anyone at home saying show
me your homework.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
When did you know you wanted to do music? Then?
Like how old?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I started harmonica when I was thirteen, and then the
guitar at fifteen, and by the time I was seventeen,
I was deciding on whether I was going to join
the Air Force and work my way into the space
program or be a musician. I had singers grades, so
I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near an airplane, much less
(26:17):
a rocket.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Did you do Harmonica? I accompany your brother? Was harmonica?
Did you play that to accompany your brother? Well?
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Actually, my brother Brian was already playing, and then I
just played it everywhere I went. We'll go down to
the pool hall. My friend said, hey, let's throw down
the hat and then people put money in there. And
then by the time I got the guitar, I got
a harmonica race and I was just out in the
neighborhood playing the three songs I knew for everyone who
(26:46):
would listen.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
My brother Kevin had the band and they didn't have.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
A bass player, but the lead guitar player, Gavin Van,
would set up an extra mind microphone and I get
up and pretend I was plugged in and sing harmonies
around my brother. But I wasn't playing that much harmonica
with them.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And usually the younger brothers have to like pick up
a bass because the older brothers playing guitar.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I became the bass player, you did, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Do you still play bass at all? Now?
Speaker 4 (27:20):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Could you fall back into it?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Yeah? I could.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I'd have to lose the uh, I grow my nails
out longer to use his picks and they wouldn't work
on bassh So yeah, I've I've done it a little bit,
you know, in the studio, just getting apart.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, what kind of studio artists, are you because obviously
you're a great musician, Therefore you obvious.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's obvious anyway, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I had never seen you live until the Opry was
shut down for COVID, and I hosted the Opry all
during those empty shows, and you played, and Darius played,
you guys played, and so there's like seven I us
there in the whole building, and I watched you with
nobody around, just shred a guitar. And I had no
idea you were such a proficient guitar player. I knew
you could play. I know you played lead parts because
(28:11):
I'd seen that, but I had no idea you were.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It looked like to me such an advanced guitar player.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now I play rudimentary guitar, and so I was kind
of blown away at your guitar ability. So I would
imagine you're in a studio. Are you a perfectionist? Are
you right alongside the whoever's producing the record and going okay,
I don't think this is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
No, But I'm producing my own records and since ninety
nine or something, and I'm not a perfectionist, and I
don't even like the word I think. I think excellence
is the better goal. You can achieve excellence. Perfection as
an accident. You know, it happens because you get lucky
(28:52):
during being trying to be excellent. So I don't strive
for perfection ever. But I know what my ear likes.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
So if my ear's not liking it, it's not excellent.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It sounds like that's the same idea you had with
that record, that first record, when you're like, hey, I
know what country music fans like. I know what I
like as a country music fan, and so we're going
to make that kind of record, And I want to
go back to you and better Man being added out
of the box, which for those that don't know, that's
a station programmer will go, I'm going to add that
(29:31):
to my playlist immediately before it's even actually asked to
be added. It's like the earliest you can get a
song added. So this LA programmed record says that your
label switches over. They now promoted. How fast until that
song actually became something you were known for or that
was played on the radio.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
Well it went to number one, It was seventeen.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Weeks in today's time, that's pretty quick. How quick. Was
it that? Back then?
Speaker 4 (29:54):
It was long?
Speaker 1 (29:55):
It was yeah, you know, it took its time, you know,
it was it was steady enough. But I think back then,
you know, back then, you could get a song up
to number one and back you know, you could get
almost five a year, which I don't think.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know, you can't do that now like you can
now if you're like Morgan Wallen, And that's so different
than anything else that's happened in my career in Nashville,
Like that's super super fast, but yeah, that's crazy. You
could do that back then, and you think seventeen weeks
was slow back.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Then, Well that's the impression I.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Got because they were telling you because you didn't know
what was really fast.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Because the because people who would interview me after you say,
were you worried it wasn't gonna get there? I mean
it took a while. Things like that that just you know,
getting grained. Oh, it took a while. But I don't
I don't think I remember enough about that moment in
my career two to remember anything specifically where other records
(31:04):
are doing it in ten weeks, yeah, I just took seventeen.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I don't remember really.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That song as it was climbing, like could you feel
more people singing along? And or depending if that your
shows are not the crowds getting bigger.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, we were playing bars and the bars were packed.
And CMT had a lot to do with that because
I wanted to get a video right away and came
up with a plan with Mary Handlton at RCA to
do that and have it ready to go instantly, you know,
when the single was released. So the video TNN and
(31:39):
Nashville Network was smoking hot back then.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
We were all watching it. Ever a country fan.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So being on the Ralph Emery Show, Ralph was saying
things like I like you, and I think you're going
to be around a while, you know, And I.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Think that helped a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I was getting on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carr
and Jay Leno when he guested, you know, I was.
I was really lucking into all the other you know,
ancillary uh, you know platforms you could be on. And
(32:17):
the Wall Street Journal a reporter came out and rode
the bus for a few days and did a future
article in that. USA Today did one and I think
it was on the cover of the entertainment section. So
the video TNN all those other things.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
We were feeling it.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, and uh, you know I was.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was starting to get you know, spots opening for
the Juds and Alabama Dwight Yoakam. I did a month
out on the road with him, so it was it
was it was clear that even if it didn't go
to number one, that it was.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Going to have a big impact.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Can you give me a Johnny Carson story.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Johnny Carson, I think the second time I did the
show with him, I wanted to do something that used
my full vocal range. And we had been playing on
the road kind of a Hank Junior version of ain't
misbehaving but I would. I would go up and sing
(33:24):
real high toward the end of the song. And so
we did that on there, and when I got over
to the couch, Johnny said, Wow, you have a false
setto you could throw a cat through.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Wow, I am.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
That's one compliment I will never forget.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's got to be crazy feeling to go ten years
in bars to doing the Tonight Show. Were you able
to have awareness of how cool it was to be
getting those big moments or were you so in it
that it was difficult to actually understand or be happy
about it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I think I was mostly overwhelmed by the workload because
I was doing nine cities in a row one day off,
eight in a row one time, we did twenty one
in a row day off, and calling into radio stations
in the morning and in the afternoon drive time, and
meeting and greeting thirty to one hundred people you know
(34:23):
before the show before Yeah, every show it was I was.
I was constantly worried about being able to sing.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Because if you're tired or sick, you don't have a voice.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, or if you talk all day yeah. And people
don't think talking is that hard, But imagine singing a
song that only has three notes and singing it all
day long. You know, you may be able to sing
some other notes, but those three notes are done. And
talking is that way, especially because a lot of us,
especially guys, tend.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
To go down here. You know, you don't talk.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Michael Jackson's spoke up here because it took some of
the strain off his vocal cords.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Wait, is that really why? Yeah, I mean it makes sense.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It's absolutely why I went to his voice coach. I've
been trying to find someone in Houston for years, and
I had worked with some voice coaches. I knew I
didn't have a good warm up routine, and I thought
I have better technique take the strain off, but no
(35:29):
one was helping me. And when Lisa and I got married,
and I told her and she took me to Seth Riggs,
who was the top guy in LA.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
He was Michael's guy.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And he didn't tell me anything about Michael, but he said,
you know, whenever you're talking, just don't talk down here
so much. Try to stay up and here and make
it easier. And Michael just took.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
That all the way up, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But Seth had a guy, a young guy who was eighteen,
Steve Real. I told Seth I really wanted someone to
go on the road with me. And he calls Steve
in and Steve comes in, Hey, and he goes Steve,
mister Black is looking for someone to work with him
on the road, warm him up, show him some you know,
some techniques it'll help take the strain off.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
And are you interested in doing that?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
He sure, he goes, Well the house fifteen hundred dollars
a week. Seth and I didn't even talk money, but
he just negotiated for me, and Steve goes, sure, and
he goes, he goes, you know, mister Black's a country singer,
and so to fit in with his entreprows, you may
I ask you to take the earring off.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
You want to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, sure, that was it And and Steve spent the
next twelve years on the road with me, singing in
the band and working with me when I had trouble,
if I if I was sick, he would give me
some you know, specific type of warm up to get
through that. And you know, if I was singing something
(37:04):
on stage and making it harder than it had to be,
after the show, he'd say, you know, when you do that,
if you do this vowel instead to get up to
your high note and then switch, it's much easier to
get up there. And it just it saved my sanity,
It saved my voice, gave me longevity I don't think
(37:25):
I would have had, and it just made everything easier.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
What'd you follow up after Better Man.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
A Better Man? And then Killing Time?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Did that one feel even bigger?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, well it was stepping off, you know, already on
the first floor, so Killing Time shot up there. Better
Man and Killing Time were the number one and two
singles of the year, which hadn't happened in thirty four years.
The last time was Hank Senior with Callija and Your
(37:59):
Cheating Heart, which I sing in the bars a million times.
And uh, and I remember thinking, you know, I was
careful not to pat myself on the back and break
my arm doing it, you know. But but I took
that ego trip that was I had a historical connection to,
(38:20):
you know, one of the greatest country artists songwriters of
all time. And uh, and I felt it. I mean
I I felt the significance of that it was written about.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
And uh. And it was like I'm here now, I'm
I'm I have my place.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You felt like you arrived. Yeah, after Killing Time, Yeah,
what was next? Uh?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Next I think was Nobody's home and then uh walking
away and then nothing's news.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
The Bobby cast will be right back. Mm hmm. That's
a pretty epic beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Five long. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
And they always about one.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Not all on the on the the same chart. We
had I think three charts back then, so RCA counted
them all as number ones.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
If it makes it.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
On one chart, that's that's good enough. And so it
was billed as five number one singles on a debut album,
which had never happened in any genre, and that kind
of it.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
It just.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
It sort of gives you an historical position that makes
you a news item. So from there, you know, it's
just more and more stories, and uh, and things just
kept picking out.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
How'd you meet your wife?
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Uh, well, it's a great story and you'll be to
read that story next summer in a book and something.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Are you writing a book?
Speaker 4 (40:05):
I'm writing it?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah you are, Yeah, give me, give me a Brevie version.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
She and her mom were in Houston doing press for
one of Lisa's movies on CBS, and someone at TV
station said, you know, I've got tickets to the Clint
Blacks show. It was New Year's Eve, if you'll want them,
and they took the tickets. She had already heard about
(40:30):
me because her manager, Herb Nanis, was partners with Stan Moress,
who was KT's manager, who I knew because I'd toured
with KT, and he and I were like Dean and Jerry.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
We were a comedy show everywhere we went.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And uh, and he gave Lisa a tape and said,
listen to this guy.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
You know you love him.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
So now they come to the show, somebody with my
management company brings her backstage. We sell hello briefly, and
then about ten days later, Uh, we're taping a an
Opry anniversary show. It's a TV special and uh, it
(41:10):
was a night I was inducted as a member. Before
the show, I had a specials Fred Rappaport came back
to my dressing room and said, I have Lisa Hartman's
phone number, and he's about to give it to me,
and he pulls it back when I reach for it
and says, but I'm not going to give it to
you unless you promise me you're going to call her.
(41:32):
So I promised, and uh, and I called her right away.
I was going to be in La to do the
tonight show and I had one night off. We went
to dinner and we were married ten months later.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Did you move out there?
Speaker 4 (41:47):
I did. I didn't. I kept a toothbrush out there.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yes, you're out there a bunch, But you didn't love
about no mail? No mail.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
She was always doing movies.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
She did about sixty year we met, I think, and uh,
and so I would up out there if she was working,
or she would be in Nashville if she weren't.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Did you ever take a break? Yes?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah, when my first greatest hits came out.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
How long was the break?
Speaker 4 (42:14):
A year and a half. I worked a little, but
not like previously.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
How did you do on that break?
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I did fine?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
He did? He liked it.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
I needed a break, you know, we were doing one
hundred and fifty cities and all the other stuff a
year at least, so.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
To get burnt out or did you get tired? They're
two different things. Which was it?
Speaker 1 (42:39):
I think I was worn out and RCA said, you know,
we want to take a break from releasing albums and
put out the greatest hits. And I was relieved, and
you know, I wanted to spend more time with Lisa.
It was the mid nineties, and I think that's when
we went over to France and Italy for five weeks.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And probably have never been able to do that, because
five weeks that's a significant amount of time. So to
be able to go anywhere for it, right, was that
totally different and like revitalizing to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I was able to completely detach, which I hadn't detached
from work since nineteen eighty you know, when I started
playing the bars, everything I did was to get another gig,
to play somewhere, to make enough money for gas and
guitar strings. You know, the food I was eating was
the cheapest food you could get. I'd go to Wendy's
(43:40):
and buy a bowl of chili, and I'd get the
little sauce cups for my tray and I'd fill up
like ten of them, would ketch up, and then as
my chili bowl emptied, I'd add ketchup stir it in,
so by the time I got to the bottom of
the bowl it was mostly ketchup. But I only had
(44:00):
to buy one bowl of chili.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Well, that's what makes you appreciate the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, Like, I think for me, what I like about
the success that I've had is I know what it's
like to not have success. I think that's what's kept
me not only grounded and even what is grounded when
you're a weirdo doing a creative job, Like, I don't
know that you're ever really grounded anyway, but I think
knowing what it's like not having it has made having
it that much more satisfying. And also it keeps me
(44:27):
on my toes because I know it could be taken
away at anytime.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I feel that way about the post RCA years. You know,
when when my deal with RCA was up, they were
they were done with me, you know, they didn't like
me writing my own songs and and pestered me about
that a lot, and and uh and so Delauney wasn't
interested in continuing, and I was happy to go. But
(44:55):
all the other major labels I talked to had the you,
we'll find you songs and will have them produced the
way they need the sound to be on the radio.
This would have been the early two thousands. So I
walked away from that and uh and just became an
independent artist and uh so radio was over for me then,
(45:17):
and uh and and I really learned over the years
to appreciate what those RCA years did for me, because
I've been able to tour all this time.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I can tour the way I want.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I have three busses in a truck and a great crew,
great band, and and I I think, you know, those
RCA years being bookended by the club days and then
the no major label, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
Pushing your music.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I think I appreciate every little thing that happens more
than I might have.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Have like three questions. Do you remember the first award
you won? Yes? What was it?
Speaker 4 (46:04):
It was the Horizon Award, which was.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
The best New Artist.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, yeah, and so that would have been what year ninety?
Speaker 3 (46:10):
It wasn't eighty nine?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
And do you know who you were up against?
Speaker 4 (46:15):
I think I think it was maybe Kathy Matteya.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Did you think it win going into it?
Speaker 4 (46:25):
I didn't think about it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I was I was the reluctant hoper, you know when
it came to awards.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
Like I really hope I do, but stop hoping.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Do you have a speech prepared?
Speaker 4 (46:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (46:42):
No, But I had one line prepared, which was, I
feel like I'm stepping into a painting I've been looking
at all my life and it and it was everyone
I'm looking at as the people I've been listening to
on the radio or watching on heat Holord TNN, you know.
Uh so I'm looking out at uh at you know,
(47:06):
my my musical heroes and uh and it really it
really rang true. And I think I added that, you know,
I feel like I'm in it now, I'm in the
painting with them. I think I was careful how I
worded that I'm the same as you.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Uh. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I didn't want to be too self aggrandizing, but I
knew I had crossed a line. I was driving past
the bar I used to play in Houston when I
was home. Uh and uh And in an instant, it's
like a whole paragraph just shoots through your mind in
(47:48):
an instant. I Uh, I saw a scene play out
of me going into that bar then and now, and
I knew going into a bar in Houston would never
be the same for me. And I crossed the line.
And I remember feeling a little bit remorseful. I got
(48:13):
what I wanted, but I lost something.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was a people watcher and now I was watched,
and so it was. There was nothing bitter or mournful
about it, but I remember I remember lamenting for a moment.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
That's gone that part of my life.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Was it ever hard being famous?
Speaker 4 (48:43):
Oh? Yeah, yeah. It's not a normal thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I mean, I mean you can run into people here
at the grocery store who see people like us all
the time, and it's nice, you know, But you know,
if I go back home where they're not seeing people
like us all the time, I'm you know, I'm an
event sometimes in it, and you know, people have you know, shrieked,
(49:09):
you know, oh my god, I can't believe I'm seeing you,
you know. And I've learned to live in that skin
now and and find ways to be comfortable when unusual
moments happened. But you know, eighty nine, ninety ninety one,
ninety two, ninety three, I mean, there were years where
(49:33):
I'd look back and go, I was pretty cool, I
had it together, and then I go I'd look back
and I go, no, I really didn't, but now I do.
And then years would go by and I'd go, I
really didn't. And then you know, and it just kept
happening where you know, I would realize more and more
(49:53):
that I'm still adjusting. And when I thought I was calm,
cool and collected, I may have been cool at times,
but I wasn't calm and I wasn't collected. And the
biggest fear, it is probably the same with you, is
you don't ever want to make anyone feel bad. You
(50:14):
don't ever want to make anyone feel like they're intruding.
So you know, there was a period there where I
was actually worried about ear lobes being ripped off because
they've been grabbed, and I've been grabbed in places they
don't like grabbing. And so you start to become uptight
if you feel like you're suddenly in a crowd that
(50:37):
wants to touch you. And and so if I thought suddenly,
now the attention's on me and I could suddenly find
myself in a crowd, I would become uptight and uh.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
And it took years to.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Get rid of that feeling. And also things calm down.
I think as people get older, which my audience primarily is, they.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Behave a little better.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
But it was, it was crazy, and it was everywhere
I went was an event, because I didn't have any
time off to go somewhere that wasn't an event. So, uh,
it was every room I walked into, it was, oh,
he's here, Clint Black's here. And you know, unless you
(51:30):
thrive on attention. I like it when I'm singing. I
hope you'll pay attention while I sing to you or
trying to make you laugh or you know it's okay,
and and uh, that kind of attention.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
But unless you really I think, unless you.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Really thrive, and I know there are some who who
just walk into a room and they feel like a star.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
I don't feel like that. I don't.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
I don't have that that feeling. I want to walk
into a room and be amongst people and not.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
You know, above them, you know, And.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Probably sounds self serving to say it, but I tried
my best to treat people the way I would want
to be treated and to try to be a normal person.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Do you write a lot of music with your daughter?
Not a lot.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
I was careful not to do too much because I
want her to learn the craft by writing with other writers.
So she's going down to music Row now and doing
co writes.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
And what do you think about her doing music?
Speaker 4 (52:47):
I love to me it's whatever makes her happy, you know.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Lisa would joke, don't you want to be a veterinarian
or something? And and for me it was just, you know,
if you really want to do this, you know, then
then you have to h it has to be this
or nothing else. And so once she made her mind
up and she took a gap year from Belmont after
(53:15):
two years that we all knew would be the end of.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
You know, school Belmont.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
So we agreed that I would create a homeschooling artist
development program for her and I would be.
Speaker 4 (53:30):
Dean Dad in it. She would have to listen to
me again.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
And and then it was, uh, you know, push and
push and push until until I felt like I've pushed enough.
My pushing won't help you anymore. And then, you know,
I just came to her and your mom. I said,
(53:55):
I think it's time to throw Lily into the deep
end of the pool. And called a couple of my buddies,
you know, Rusty Gaston and Clay Bradley and you know,
and said, hey, you know, I need some advice. You know,
where's the best pool. I didn't have to say much.
(54:17):
I just I just wanted to pick their brains. And
they took it from there. They said, tell her to
call us, they both said that, and and so she
called him. She went in for that you know, high
Nerve meeting and uh, and they started introducing her to
young writers her age and uh, and that was it.
(54:40):
It was, you know, I'm still here with advice, but
this is this is.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Your pool now.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Before you came in, we were talking about that back
on the black Top tour. And do you still play
all the songs? Do you have any hits you don't play, Oh.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, you do?
Speaker 4 (54:58):
I do? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (54:59):
I well, you do what you do? Play all the
songs or you have some you don't play.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
I have some I don't play.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
And it varies, but I can only do about twenty
two songs in a show, and then it becomes too long.
Speaker 4 (55:19):
When Lisa and.
Speaker 1 (55:20):
Lily were on the road with me, we would do more,
but they were coming and going in different wardrobe.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
And but you know, twenty two songs.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
I had thirty one top tens, yeah, and twenty two
number ones. And so I want to do some a
couple of deep cuts. There's a couple of you know,
barn burners like tuckered Out that we need to do.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
What must you play? Give me the five songs you
must play every show?
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Oh, better Man, Killing Time, good run of bad Luck,
nothing but the tail lights every show.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
You're gonna do those? For sure, you're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
Those, Oh yeah, because I think people would be a
said if you didn't do those exact ones.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Summer's Coming is one, I feel like, you know, and
the ones that usually lose outer ballads because you can
only do so many ballads in most shows.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Man, what a problem. You have too many hits? That's
a long way from the.
Speaker 4 (56:17):
Bar, man, trust me, I know that is a long
way from the bar.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
We've done this the other way where I was in
that seat, not at the same house. But you've interviewed
me and so tables are turned. Have you sat for
many long form, hour long interviews.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
I don't think so. I did Sarah Evans podcast.
Speaker 3 (56:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
And my manager's right over there. He keeps track of
what I'm doing. I can tell you where I'm going.
I can't tell you where I've been. It's this weird thing.
And I have got this Google calendar and I can
look at it.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
What kind of calendar person are you?
Speaker 4 (57:08):
Well? What do you mean, Well, I have the I
have the one on my laptop and on my phone.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Is everything in it?
Speaker 4 (57:14):
And everything is in it?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Do you follow it to the dot? I mean I do.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
I live by it, like my calendar is a massive
part of my everyday life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I have to have a calendar, and I have to
be I'm just I'm one of those early people.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
I'm early. I have to look at my.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Calendar, and then I go and then I study the
Google map, and I go down the street level and I.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
Drove over here virtually before I came over son, because
I'm very anxious. I don't want to miss a turn
and be late. It starts to wear on me.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
You know you were, and I say, this is another
person that's very early all the time. You were very
early here.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
I love that, thanks, because some people not as early,
Some would say late, a little oh disrespectful, I feel all.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
I think, if you're not fifteen minutes earlier or late.
And my dad was that way, and me and one
other brother was that way, and the other two brothers.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Were the opposite. And we would tell them tea times
that were like an hour and a half earlier than
they were, and they'd still be late.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
I got into that with my wife a little, because
she is she's not a late person, but she's definitely
not overly prompt like I am. And so I would
start to tell her a little later. Then she would
find out that I was telling her later generally, so
she'd start stalling on that time.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
So then I had to move it back even more.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
So then I'm telling her like an hour and a
half early, and eventually she catches up with it and
it became a pretty a sore spot. And I'm early
everywhere except when I'm with my wife. I was talking
to the driver at a driver taking me back to
the airport from Vegas, and I'm just curious about people
in general. And I was talking to her about her
job and how long she'd been in Vegas, and I said,
(59:00):
are most people late when they go to the airport
from Vegas? Because we had been there for work, but
we were staying in a casino, and she was like, yeah,
most people are late in the latest are couples? Couples
are always late because I always fighting about something, always
fighting to be late.
Speaker 3 (59:14):
So is your wife early late? What's that? What's her style?
Speaker 4 (59:17):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (59:17):
No, she's she's always rushing to get out the door.
And h our daughter is, Lily is always rushing to
get out the door. And uh and so now Lily
uses what I always used, Here we go, here we go,
instead of hey, we need to go, you know, because
that can irritate people.
Speaker 4 (59:37):
You know, we need to leave.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
We're running behind, You're gonna make us late. You can't
say that. You can't say any.
Speaker 3 (59:43):
Of those Yeah, I feel like that's here we go
is not effective at all in my house. You have
many brothers, three all boys.
Speaker 4 (59:50):
Yeah, no sisters.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
Wow, that must have been a rough housing house.
Speaker 4 (59:54):
It was, Yeah, it was. Uh. One brother used reason
and logic on me and the other two. Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
One one would seem like he was gonna get physical,
but he wouldn't, and then the other.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
One would Where do you fall in the order?
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I'm the youngest.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Wow, so I was retreating under furniture a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So as the youngest. And you had three older brothers.
Were they ball players? Artists? Well?
Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Like what what was the brother vibel?
Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Like? Uh? Ballplayers? When when we were younger? Uh?
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Uh the oldest brother wasn't musical and the rest of
us were. Uh, the older oldest brother, uh you know,
early on went into construction. We all followed him. One
became a carpenter, Brian Mark You Mark became a foreman,
and Kevin and I worked for Mark as iron workers.
(01:00:52):
Kevin longer than I did, but uh uh you know
we were mostly into music.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
One became a cop. He was a cop for a while,
got into a bad shootout and the guy that pointed
a gun at five deputies and they had to shoot him,
and then Brian, you know, started plugging up holes and
they saved his life. He well lived, but then he
sued them for five years, then the deputies in the department,
(01:01:24):
and it really destroyed his love of policing. Brian was
always the person who would you know, jump out at
a car wreck to try to help people. When he
was in security, he was the first one bullet shots,
whatever was happened, he was the first one onseene. He
was just that way, and and when that shooting happened,
(01:01:48):
it it changed everything.
Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
What about your mom and dad? What were they like?
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Dad was very stoic, very quiet, dry wit and h
My mom was Italian, who's still with us, she'll be
ninety next year, very dynamic. So you can imagine with
four boys in the house, she was driven to anger
(01:02:14):
a lot, and it would come up in a flash
when she finally have enough of our nonsense, and then
it would disappear in a flash, and just as quickly
she could laugh hysterically. So you know, her wire was
live and ready to go whichever button you pushed. You know,
Mom was ready and she loved being in the mix.
(01:02:38):
If we were playing in bars, you know, being there
having fun, singing along and all of that, and my
dad not at all.
Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
My dad.
Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
We would have backyard parties where my brother's band and
I would be in the backyard playing and barbecuing and
all of that.
Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
My dad had his lounge share with his ice chest
and that was him for the whole night. He was
just he worked so hard every day, you know, getting
up at you know, four fifteen am and going into work.
He was a heavy equipment operator, the tower cranes that
go up above the buildings, and it was intense work.
(01:03:20):
So he came home pretty tired.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Do you think that his personality?
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
And where I come from, a lot of people do
construction jobs or mill jobs, and so there's not a
lot of belief in a job that is art because
it's not secure. There's no real security in any sort
of artistic endeavor. When you come from a rural area
like I did that, people don't tell you can't do it,
but it's really it's kind of a fairy tale, and
(01:03:48):
there's really no consistency in fairy tales. Do you feel
like your dad thought that about music? Like he loved
you guys, and I was like I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
He told me I needed to have a fallback, the consistent,
but he believed in me as a singer, and he
just worried that it wasn't gonna work because it seldom does.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
And there's no roadmap that anyone knows of. I've read
all the books.
Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
You find in any of those books and uh.
Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
So you you just don't you don't know. It's not
like a vocation.
Speaker 4 (01:04:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I was taught how to do iron work, and I
could have done it the rest of my life and
made good, good living.
Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
Uh, you know, if you learn.
Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
He wanted me to learn how to repair air conditioners
because we were in Houston, a lot of need for
that and uh.
Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
And it was always going to be hot, yeah, for
the rest of time. It was going to be hot.
Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
And if it's hot, there's there's work.
Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
And you can learn how to do that work and
then just keep doing it. You can learn how to
do music and you can keep doing it. But you're
not gonna, you know, make the kind of money if
you don't get out of the bars, you're not going
to make the kind of money. And electric would or
you know, the Maytag guy.
Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Would may take.
Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I made good money so with you in commercial Yes, yes,
an he wore uniform so I had to get the
fancy clothes or anything. Well, I really like you as
a person, so I'm I'm super excited that you came
over today.
Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
The feelings mutual. Well, and you're You're a great guy
to kid with. You know, I can say things to
you in a text and I have to worry about
them and taking the wrong way.
Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yeah, I think we're.
Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Cut from a bit of the same cloth, but I
do have to when when you're around. I got to
sit up straight because I know it's coming and I
got to come back or I'll be left in the dust.
Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Well, and that's a that's a good that's a that's
a fun thing to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Well, it's fun to know you feel that way. Yes,
because I'd like to think I'm smart or witty, uh
and all of that. But you're pretty smart and witty yourself,
you know.
Speaker 4 (01:05:51):
So I'm wearing you.
Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
They're telling me what to say.
Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Funny back, say no coffee, Say no coffee.
Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
All right, you guys go check out the tour.
Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
Back on the Blacktop North American Tour, there's a final
leg in the spring of twenty twenty six. Tickets are
at Clint Black dot com. And you did a killing
time like an anniversary album, didn't you.
Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Yeah? Last year we did the whole album in order.
Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
And did you did you do vinyl on that? Yes?
Do you still sell those?
Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Dang I should have had one of those. Kind of
got an autograph my favorite artist.
Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
I have a manager over there on the tank, ask him.
Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Why, Hey, you did our show with us this year too.
Thank you for that. I told you think you about it,
but it was fun. But you came in. We did,
we do a big show for Saint June. You came
and it was really.
Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Really it's a you know, from the very beginning. Uh,
when Randy Owen called me and said, will you be
involved in our you know, Country Cares for Saint Jude's,
he's kicked all that off. I had met a kid
in South Carolina who came up to me backstage and said, uh,
told me his story. He had cancer, His parents had
(01:06:58):
no means, there was no way to get help where
he lived, and his high school friends had heard about
Saint Jude's and they drove him to Memphis and dropped
him off in front of the hospital. Wow, he walked
in and they cured him.
Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
And so and I had seen a documentary on it.
So when Randy called, it was a it was a
no brainer. Just the fact that they share their research
with everyone. There's there's no you know, proprietary you know ownership.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
That and for me because I was in the hospital
a bunch as a kid and without help because I
didn't have cancer, but i'd rupture my spleen and I
had a lot of internal bleeding. But if it weren't
for organizations, even our church, I don't know that we'd
gotten through it or even got our bills paid after.
And so with at Saint Jude, you know, one of
the things that they do that's so amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Is there's no bill.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
There's no bill, it's food's covered, travels covered, house covered.
And so with that, I think that's why I was
drawn to it to pretty much stay active the whole
year with it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
It is really a fantastic place. I didn't know that
story about the kids South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
And the thing I found out years later was the
hospital opened I think the day I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
That is, I think I know.
Speaker 3 (01:08:20):
It was Jude then it would be really crazy.
Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
I'd go by Saints.
Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
The I know it was the year, but I think
it opened February fourth or third.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Yeah, that, Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
If it's if the hospital started on your birthday period,
then yeah, there's something cosmic happening here.
Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
If not, yeah, just a fun coincidence.
Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Yeah, I mean I'm meeting that kid and uh, Chris
Randy I think would.
Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
Have called me. Yeah, you know, no matter when it.
Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Opened, Mike, any date on that sixty two, February fourth.
Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
That's my birthday?
Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
No way.
Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Yes, that is why I found that out just like
ten years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
And then I forgot that. I knew it. I had to.
I had to get Mike to help verify it.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Mike, will you google if any other famous events happened
on that day, February fourth, nineteen sixty two, any other
and if it's like Hindenburg crashed, it's like.
Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
Bobby Bones waited to be born.
Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
That is literally the first thing that pops up when
you search that. What the opening of Saint Jude?
Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Got it? Is there anything else on that date? First
US helicopter shot down in Vietnam? That's what I thought.
Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, that feels more I had nothing to do you sure,
I'm sure all right? Guys, go check out Clint Live
at Clint Black Clint Get to See Man.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
You too. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
Host
Bobby Bones
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