Clint Black dealt with a nefarious manager when he was first getting his country music career off the ground.
The 90s country star just released his new memoir titled Killin’ Time: My Life and Music. In the book, he gets into the highs and lows of his music career that has stretched across decades. And it’s fittingly named, because his debut album – Killin’ Time – is what launched him to stardom.
Black was signed by RCA in late 1987 and released his first album two years later in 1989. He recorded the project with his road band, instead of using session musicians like many other artists did at the time. Clint Black has had 13 No. 1 hits in his career, and four of those came from Killin’ Time.
One of those was “Nobody’s Home,” and Clint Black told Fox & Friends that it was the first ever demo he cut after meeting his longtime friend and bandmate:
“I met this guy, Hayden Nicholas, who is still my lead guitar player. He was filling in for a band I hired for this one gig. He was amazing. We gravitated towards each other. He had a demo recording machine in his garage. The first demo we made was ‘Nobody’s Home,’ which would become a hit for me. I took that to this record promoter I had met years earlier and asked him to help me find a manager.”
Though his career seemed to get off to a wonderful start, the manager that he ended up working with took a lot of the luster out of his initial success.
Clint Black goes into more detail about it in the book, but basically, the manager signed Black to three contracts where he took 100% of publishing and 50% of everything the country star made. There were a lot of things that Black was kept in the dark about, including a million dollar advance:
“I didn’t even know there was a million dollar advance. I was in Nashville recording parts for the album and ran out of money. Didn’t have any money to eat. The producer came over and bought me a pizza, and then called the manager the next day and said, ‘Give him per diem.'”
That manager, Bill Ham, was eventually sued by Black in 1992. The country singer filed a $5 million lawsuit against his then former manager, and cited fraud, deceit, undue influence, and breach of contract. A settlement was eventually reached after months of litigation.
And that wasn’t the only time that Clint Black had trouble with a manager. In 2008, the country star found himself in a very similar situation, and sued his manager and accountant, Charles Sussman, for alleged financial misguidance. That lawsuit also reached an eventual settlement.
Writing the memoir allowed for Clint Black to dive back into some of those legal issues, and he said that he’s proud of himself for getting through all of it while still maintaining his country music career:
“What strikes me is, when I put it all together, is how that little guy pushed through all of that. The things I didn’t know I had in me, to get through the injuries and legal battles. It was surprising.”
