That’s a lot of talent on one historic stage.
The legendary Clint Black took the stage at the Ryman Auditorium last night for the second of three shows, celebrating the 35th anniversary of his debut album Killin’ Time.
Not only were we treated to Clint performing the entire album front to back, but he also had a few surprises up his sleeve for the sold-out crowd at the Mother Church of Country Music.
Before he got to the 7th song of the evening (and the 7th song of the album), Clint recalled moving to Nashville to become a songwriter – something his dad didn’t necessarily approve of:
“My dad really believed in me as a singer. Believed I could make it.
As a songwriter, not so much. I told my dad I wanted to write my own songs and he said, ‘Good grief. You just haven’t done enough living to write real country songs.’
I was 22 at the time, and fortunately my dad didn’t know exactly how much living I had done. I thought it was enough.”
Well Clint was determined to prove his dad wrong, so he wrote a song called “Nothing’s News.”
And then years later, as Clint recalls:
“A couple of younger dudes call me up and invite me to join them on their version of my song.”
Clint then invited those “younger dudes,” Cody Jinks and Ward Davis, on stage to perform the song with him. And before their duet, Cody and Ward told the crowd exactly how their cover came about.
As Cody tells it:
“Ward and I were on the road. Ward and I spent a lot of time on the road together years ago. And we were sitting out in his van before one of the shows. And the van was smoky on the inside…
We were listening to the Killin’ Time record and we were talking about how it is arguably one of the greatest country music records of all time. Not that that meant anything to anybody except for me and Ward in that moment, but we had this really great stoner idea.
We were like, ‘You know what we should do man? We should call Clint Black.’
So a couple months later we called and pitched the idea. He was very gracious, and said he’d love to be a part of us singing his own song with him singing on it as well. So thank you.”
But Clint just wanted to clear up one thing:
“Just to be clear, I was not in the van.”
@whiskeyriff #whiskeyriff #warddavis #codyjinks #clintblack ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff
The three then delivered a killer performance of Clint’s “Nothing’s News,” which was released as the fifth and final single from Killin’ Time back in 1990.
But before he left the stage, Ward had one more request from Clint:
“When I was 9 years old and I was living down in Arkansas, my dad would only let us buy one copy of any album that came out, and my sister ended up with the copy of Killin’ Time so I had to pirate my own copy.
But if it’s ok when we’re done, I’ve got another copy in here I want you to sign for my sister if you don’t mind.”
And sure enough, before leaving the stage, Ward pulled out a copy of Clint’s first album to get his autograph on – 35 years after Killin’ Time first came out.
@whiskeyriff #whiskeyriff #warddavis #clintblack #codyjinks ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff
