Clint Black reflects on songwriting and the enduring appeal of his music catalog

Alongside Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt, Katy, Texas-native Clint Black's Nashville career ties its roots to 1989.

However, unlike that trio of pop-country superstars, Black is the lead songwriter on all 22 of his chart-topping singles.

On Nov. 4, the 60-year-old "Killin' Time" vocalist was celebrated at Broadcast Music Inc.'s Nashville offices after achieving 60 million broadcast performances of his songs and 38 billion audience impressions in airplay impact since BDS/Billboard began monitoring spins in 1990.

It's evidence of the strength of '90s country as a catalog leader on streaming platforms, but it also speaks to the idea that Black shows that a country artist can supersede charts and stages to achieve relevancy for three decades of pop-cultural relevance in the genre.

He recalls the unprecedented era in which he broke into country music's mainstream and achieved superstardom as an "exciting, explosive time" when remaining creatively inspired was necessary.

"'90s country's stars were fans of Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins and Bob Wills, but we also loved the Eagles, Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steely Dan, Leon Russell, Johnny and Edgar Winter," says Black, highlighting the genre's underpinning in classic country instrumentation being seen through an approachable, blue-collar rock lens.

Black adds that R&B artists like Stevie Wonder ("I very quickly gave up trying to play harmonica like him," he jokes) and Marvin Gaye also influenced his progression.

"I don't know how many people in country music were into all of that," Black says.

He adds that he loved the jazz- and bluegrass-inspired artists he shared space with during the era, including Mark O'Connor and Ricky Skaggs.

The idea that he eventually meandered into country music shows how closely tied he's been to mainstream cultural and musical popularity overall. But even deeper, his attraction to critically acclaimed musicianship uniquely defined his rise and its sustainability.

Black's roots as a harmonica player and guitarist inspired by the bluesy stylings of John Mayall and J. Geils Band's Magic Dick, plus James Taylor's folk-driven rock leanings were vital in his early development. Such "complex" music was hard to learn but critical in his story, and "turning on the faucet" of ideas as a songwriter proved equally difficult.

Thus, he simplified his work.

That decision ultimately inspired his wealth of chart-topping songwriting success.

He recalls hearing Reba McEntire say that when she reached superstardom, picking songs for her albums meant choosing one in every 100 submitted by outside writers. Daunted by that task, he discovered his own path, writing fewer but greater songs via his own hand.

Black describes the process as a "face overlay" that the veteran of stage and screen feels is akin to method acting. "Singing through a mask" defined by artists such as Haggard, Emmylou Harris and Hank Williams Sr. was inherent in writing many of his early hits.

Eventually, though, diversifying his catalog like contemporaries including Alabama and Ronnie Milsap, led him to expand his approach to reflect significantly more of his influences. The realization that he could meet a bar he'd set for himself based primarily on a set of peerless hall of fame-level talent was important.

Writing what he describes as "poetry" on a standard comparable to his inspirations ultimately redefined what stardom and success looked like for Black.

As country's depth and scope of pop appeal soared by the mid-1990s, Black found himself as one of that surge's progenitors achieving a level of fame that, similar to the likes of Brooks, Jackson, Tritt and Billy Ray Cyrus, superseded the genre. His success led him to launch a career on the silver screen.

Between the Wynonna Judd duet "A Bad Goodbye," writing with his hero Haggard on "Untanglin' My Mind" and his single "A Good Run of Bad Luck" being paired with an appearance in Mel Gibson-starring film "Maverick,"his aspiration meeting his inspiration opened a new portal in his creative mindset.

"Expanding past sitting in a room looking for ideas grows how profound the depth and scope of emotions a song can trigger," says Black.

"A Good Run of Bad Luck" spent 20 weeks on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in 1994, peaking on top in May of that year. He adds, "writing from a script as inspiration means you don't have to be a poet plus invent a back story" for a song.

Moreover, his marriage of 30 years to actress Lisa Hartman Black heightened his sensitivity to maintaining a work-life balance between a film and music career alongside becoming a father.

"She helped me accept that I am allowed to get tired doing this," Black states, laughing heartily.

"Music is like a never-ending dripping faucet [of influence] in my life that blocks out everything else," Black adds. Having a creatively-inspired spouse with relentless passion has been essential in his career overall.

His evolution as a musician and producer is a similarly iconoclastic process that found him eschewing industry logic to highlight his intellect. He profoundly appreciates his roots in Houston with guitarist and songwriter Hayden Nicholas, plus time spent in Nashville around Chet Atkins, James Stroud and Steve Wariner.

A rare artist who retains as much as he improves, he recalls that he was initially "uptight" with his process.

As a largely Houston-based outsider not part of Nashville's bar or songwriting scene, he was able to engage with what he describes as "more the art and not the gallery," impacting Nashville's music industry without touching much of its vaunted machine.

A singer-songwriter of chart-topping material who did not use the city's session players or songwriters for the first 25-plus years of his career in Music City, he notes that being an "isolated outsider" was "strange" because he had great love and respect for the city's professional class. Eventually, with songwriters like Wariner for 2000's "Been There," he crafted hits and singles alongside them.

Continuing his evolution, he's been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for as long as he's been a married to Hartman Black. Currently, he's paired with the Opry-affiliated Circle Network as the host of the retrospective talk program "Talking in Circles With Clint Black." Entering his second season as host, he describes the process as "yet another of many consistently fantastic moments" he's had on-screen in the past three decades.

"Doing television for singers is typically like the round peg in a square hole. But ['Talking in Circles With Clint Black'] has been the greatest TV experience of my career," he says.

"Though I've now validated that my songbook will last the test of time, I'm still learning as much now about everything [as ever]," says Black. "I'm still not satisfied with so much. I am still improving. The totality of my career as an artist, player and producer is all about me fighting my fear of ever feeling like I'm hitting a [creative] wall."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Country music's Clint Black reflects on songwriting, enduring appeal