Year: 1992

While Garth Brooks ushered in the new era of country music in the 90’s, Clint Black released his first single three weeks earlier and was nearly as successful on the charts. He had thirteen #1 hits compared to Garth’s nineteen. Of course, the main difference was that Garth was a hell of an entertainer and was a much more vocal person. Black won male vocalist of the year his first two years (from ACM and CMA respectively) and never won another award.

Black has been an incredibly private person. Not that Black shied away from the limelight. He played one of the cheating poker players in Maverick and then did a lot more TV and reality shows. But he has kept his private life really damn private. He and his wife Lisa Hartman (also a country singer and TV actor) have shared very little about their personal lives. They sang about their love (“When I Said I Do”) and it was a huge crossover hit. Black wrote an amazing song about his newborn daughter (“Little Pearl and Lily’s Lullaby”) but they almost never shared pictures or information about her until she was in her late teens and joined her dad as entertainer. Much respect.

Anyway, “Burn One Down” is my favorite. It’s not the most lyrically imaginative, but I love the violin (which is pretty much gone from country nowadays) and the song perfectly shows off his range. He’s also a pretty good harmonica player which he shows off in “Good Run of Bad Luck” and “State of Mind.”

Weirdly, I like almost every single he released from 1989 to 2002 but I like almost none of the album filler.