Clint Black celebrates 'Killin' Time''s timeless legacy at Nashville's Ryman

Clint Black celebrated not just his own 22 No. 1 singles worth of country chart-topping success and the 35th anniversary of his mainstream debut, Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Award-winning debut album "Killin' Time" at The Ryman Auditorium with three consecutive weekend headlining shows.

Instead, consider that the success of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson, two other male country stars borne of 1989's boom in the genre, led them to own over $100 million in Lower Broadway bar properties. Thus, Black's songs like his 1989 album's title track, plus "A Better Man," "Nobody's Home" and "Walkin' Away," are invaluable in how they set the table for multiple generations of country's commercial boom eras.

Onstage at The Ryman, Black's sharply delivered vocals, suave demeanor and assured stylings almost felt more album-oriented classic rock than "neo-traditional Texas country." There was no good-timing way down yonder on the Chattahoochee or guitars being splintered at the body like Bo Jackson's baseball bats onstage.

Instead, to extend the 1980s baseball analogy, it was the equivalent of an evening at the Astrodome, watching a veteran Houston Astros pitcher throw a complete game, nine-inning win and scatter ten hits with a few fastballs for strikeouts. Largely dominating with off-speed stuff -- but never a curve ball in the mix -- Black, the metaphorical pitcher, is still capable of a fun live show where a positive result is never in doubt.

Here are a few other takeaways from The Ryman on Sunday evening.

'Nobody's Home'

All great recipes for success arrive with a formula.

In Clint Black's case, his four decades of compositional and songwriting work with guitarist Hayden Nicholas have underpinned the dynamic scope of his work. Black's largely still rooted in his work as a honky-tonker, as adept with his quick wit and a harmonica solo as he can deliver sturdily-constructed country songs -- however, their lyrics land without apparent overtures to two-steppin' on sawdust floors.

"Nobody's Home" painstakingly details the hours between 7 and 9 a.m. -- including a heartbroken blue-collar man's "mindless old routine" of waking up and putting on his clothes.

Instead of working to support a potential wife or family, he's just trying to pay off the lease on his truck and drinking a cup of coffee to free his mind from being numbed by the shock that remains from ending up "half a man with half a mind."

"But it's not really me I still comb my hair the same...since you left, everybody says I'm not the guy they've known / The lights are on, but nobody's home."

When Nicholas and crew dig into that groove with rock-aimed stylings, the song elevates to a standard of being one of the biggest-selling songs -- all-genre -- of 1990.

Onstage at The Ryman on Sunday night, that magic remained.

Impressively, Black is still chasing dreams of increased country superstardom

Clint Black's father didn't want his son to pursue a career in singing over construction work because he believed his son would never pen songs comparable to the work of Harlan Howard.

Howard's a songwriter responsible for "I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline, "Busted" by Ray Charles, "Heartaches by the Number" by Ray Price and "Why Not Me?" by the Judds. Also, roughly one in every 40 songs he wrote was a top-10 country hit.

Over his four-decade career, Black, by comparison, is the lead songwriter on all 22 of his chart-topping singles. Among his catalog, those songs have achieved 60 million broadcast performances and 38 billion audience impressions in airplay impact since 1990.

Clint Black has acted alongside Mel Gibson and performed with George Jones, but it's an easy-to-argue point that he has possibly reached, but not eclipsed Harlan Howard's level of success.

When the performer quips about his father's initial disbelief in his talent, it highlights why he's on The Ryman's stage 35 years after his mainstream debut. It's also why, as Black's concert expanded past its first of two hours, his No. 1 hits "Shoes You're Wearing," "Summer's Comin'" and "When The Ship Comes In" still sound as tightly-weaved and well-constructed as they did three decades ago.

Notably, on the latter, multi-instrumentalist Jason Mowery's fiddle work is particularly evocative -- much like the rest of Black's longtime touring band, his peerless, Grammy-nominated skill is readily apparent.

Black's set was as much a timeless good-time party as something more representative of admirably still chasing the dream.

A family affair

Clint Black jokes that when he met his wife of 32 years, Lisa Hartman Black, he was both amazed by her beauty and because he was so dialed into his music career, wholly unaware of her five albums of mainstream material as a vocalist and four seasons on CBS' "Knots Landing."

However, after eight years of marriage, Hartman and Black recorded 1999's "When I Said I Do."

At The Ryman, they rekindled that duet while respectively wearing a billowing wedding gown and tuxedo jacket. Given their flair for the dramatic, the moment landed with an appropriately warm response.

The Black's daughter, Lily Pearl Black, also appeared multiple times during her father's concert.

Lily, 22, is an aspiring country performer in her own regard.

Thus, she performed the 2021 single "A Change Is In The Air," a duet alongside her parents.

Impressively, the song, a three-part harmony, has a composition and delivery akin to Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner's work on The Eagles' 1972 classic "Peaceful Easy Feeling."

It's a full-circle moment.

In a 1989 Chicago Tribune interview, Black recalls his early days and being categorized as an acoustic folk-blues singer-songwriter. His evolution to being a "dramatic instrumentalist" steeped in country's then "classic" traditions keyed his acclaim.

2024 finds that connection, when coupled with his family's appearance onstage, more steeped and vibrant than ever.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Clint Black celebrates 'Killin' Time''s timeless legacy at Nashville's Ryman