Clint Black‘s new memoir, Killin’ Time: My Life and Music, is out now. The autobiography covers his entire life and career, beginning with his early days growing up in Texas, his rise to superstardom, life as a husband and father, and more.

Black is still touring, and still making music. And yet, he felt now was the right time to share his story.

“I just had all the right people around me talking me into it,” Black explains to Everything Nash. “That’s why now. … I never thought I could write a book.”

Killin’ Time is an uplifting story about how Black overcame the odds and worked hard to make his country music dreams come true. But it also shares some of his devastating lows, including losing his father to suicide in 2012. For Black, it wasn’t just reliving the moments, happy or sad, to write them down, but it was reliving them over and over and over again.

“I relived it in the writing, and then I relived it in the reading for editing and editor’s notes,” Black recalls. “And then I relived it again with more notes, and just going through and rereading the book about five times, just in the editing process. And by the time I had gotten toward the end of doing that, I was actually really, I think to the best extreme, reliving it. And the writing, I’m looking; I’m relearning when things happened, and I’m trying to come up with the wording.

“And I am feeling things,” he adds. “But not like I did when I got toward the end of that process. And now I’m reading my book as a reader, an examiner. And while I was examining, the impact of my stories got through completely to me. And there were times when I cried over things.”

When Black writes about his father’s tragic death, he didn’t cry at first, until the book was nearly finished.

“I didn’t sob when I was writing it,” Black reveals. “It was only toward the end when I was with different eyes looking at it for a different reason.”

 

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Why Clint Black Wrote ‘Killin’ Time’

Black may not have ever written Killin’ Time, if not for the encouragement of his family, including his wife, actress Lisa Hartman Black.

“She’s been telling me for years,” Black says. “I would share stories with her. I would think of some story that I’d never told her. The near drownings; there are two that aren’t in the book. And she used to say all the time, ‘You should write a book.’ And her sister Terri would say the same thing. So she always felt I should.”

The couple’s 25-year-old daughter, Lily, also had a hand in her famous father sharing his story with the world, when she bought him a guided journal so she could learn more about him.

“You open it up, and you write all this stuff in there,” he says. “And telling my stories for her, I think, was a big motivator.”

Cllint Black Still Wants To Do More in Country Music

Black’s debut album, Killin’ Time, came out in 1989. 37 years later, Black is still making music. Now 64 years old, Black has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.

“Killin’ Time really set me for a great career,” Black says. “Those years at RCA, which were really about 11 years, I had 31 Top 10 hits, 22 No. 1s. And that right there alone has sustained my career. I think the fact that I’m out there every year — Jimmy Buffett told me, ‘You need to be out there every summer.’ Well, I’m out there every spring, summer, and fall, but I’m out there every year. I play about 80 cities a year, sometimes more.”

Because of Black’s longevity, he gets to experience something few artists do: the ability to see multiple generations attend one of his shows.

“People are bringing their kids, their teenagers,” Black says. “And so we’re seeing younger faces singing along with the songs. Just like country music always had, we collect audiences, eight to 80, and we do a good job. We keep them. My discipline, my vocal chords – every night is the Super Bowl to me. And I set myself up to be in good voice. I don’t let things in that are going to make me not as good that night.”

Killin’ Time: My Life and Music is available now.

Photo Credit: James Coletta