In celebration of Black History Month, happy birthday Clint Black

I haven't really had the energy to do a birthday post in a while, but the humorous misappropriation of a time set aside to celebrate the history of African Americans (or "Blacks") as a a celebration of a non-African American in the whitest genre of popular music was too compelling to resist. I thought the Bloodhound Gang song "Fire Water Burn" had a lyric about not being black like Barry White, but white like Clint Black, but I was wrong. It was Frank Black. Ooops.

Here's what you need to know about Clint Black:

1. He's not the greatest country artist of the end of the 20th century: not the greatest singer or musician or songwriter. But he is very good at all of those things, thus warranting some kind of "best all around" superlative, should one be available.

2. His debut album Killin' Time is generally pronounced as though one is whiling away the hours doing nothing, "I'm just killing time waiting on the autopsy results." Either Becky or Chris Wilson changed the emphasis so now you should do as we do, and pronounce it as thought it is time to commence the slaughter... "c'mon Rhonda, it's killing time!" Also the album is solid, a good B+.

3. He has won several ACM and CMA awards, and been nominated for a few Grammys. His Wikipedia entry doesn't show him winning any, but he has, in what can best be described as "everybody gets a Grammy," he shares the 1998 Grammy for Country Collaboration with Vocals ("Same Old Train") with Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam, Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Joe Diffie, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, Pam Tillis, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs and Travis Tritt. I'm sure it was a clerical error that kept Liza from sharing in this as well, which is a shame if you think about it.

4. He is married to Lisa Hartman Black (but she used to be Lisa Hartman, so it's not this weird coincidence about the last name). She sang on a song on one of his albums and they shared a nomination in the above Grammy category 2 years later but she wasn't as lucky in 2000 as he was in 1998... guess they  needed more coattails (the winners that year were husband and wife duo of Mr. and Mrs. Faith Hill, so not more coattails, just BIGGER coattails). I think Lisa and Clint are a great celebrity couple, in the tradition of classic couples like Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber, not scary fame whores like Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna. And they're age appropriate (she's a little older than him) and they've been married more than 20 years. But Lisa should totally do Dancing with the Stars, I will allow that without calling her a fame whore.

5. At one point Chris Wilson and I were making lists (sorry, I need to be more specific since at many MANY points in our lives we were making lists)... we were making lists of favorite dance songs. He was pleasantly surprised to see I included 2 country songs on my list (I was living in Dallas at the time and there was no denying the vibrancy of the dance floor at the Round-Up). This is one of those 2 country songs.


Surprisingly enough, that's all you need to know about Clint Black.

Happy birthday dude! Rock on!