Clint Black Shares Why He Was Finally Ready to Tell His Life Story in ‘Killin’ Time: My Life and Music’ Memoir [Exclusive]

Clint Black’s long awaited memoir, Killin’ Time: My Life and Music, is finally out in the world, allowing fans to get a look behind the curtain through the stories of his journey from growing up outside of Houston to becoming one of the most iconic stars in country music.

While reflecting on the process of seeing this project come to life, the Texas native admitted to Country Now that it took a bit of convincing before he was ready to unleash his memories and life experiences in this brand-new way. He “never thought” he would or could write a book, but his wife, Lisa Hartman Black spent years telling him that he needed to do it.

The final point of motivation came with the realization that his only daughter, Lily Pearl Black, was turning 25 in 2026. Black explains he wanted to have a collection of stories, not only for the world to read, but also his daughter so that she could learn even more about her dad.

“It was fun to know she was reading it,” he shared.

When the moment finally came for him to take a chance on himself and write the memoir, with some guidance from his co-writer, Craig Shelburne, and editor, by Maddie Pillari with HarperCollins Publishing, Black found that it wasn’t so difficult to put pen to paper. In fact, by the end of the process, he had overwritten about his early struggles, his rise in the spotlight, and building a family amid it all.

Plus, he gets candid about the challenges that came with it, including legal battles, industry pressures, and health scares, like the recent cervical spine injury that threatened his ability to sing.All of these stories come together under the title fittingly named after his groundbreaking debut album, which was released in 1989.

“I wrote more than the book needed and I had some feedback from Craig Shelburne and from my editor, Maddie. And I knew I was going to have a great editor at Harper Collins and that I would benefit from their experience. And so I just put more in there than needed,” Black noted. “I just had more than I needed and then relied on Maddie and Craig to help point out areas that needed work. And that was really it.”

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Luckily, his collaborators gave him the freedom to decide which stories were worth keeping and which didn’t need to be shared at this time.

“There were some things that I would say, ‘I feel strongly about this.’ And my editor would encourage me that, ‘if you really feel strongly about something, don’t listen to me.’ But I listened to her a lot.”

Of course, new memories are made every day so knowing when to put the pen down and decide that the memoir was finally complete took some time. However Black’s experience with making 14 studio albums throughout his career has given him the tools to know when to call a project finished and move on.

“There are things that I think of now that I feel like, that would’ve been good to put in the book. We’re always telling stories. We’re on the road, on the bus talking. Somebody new joins the tour and will you tell a story or two, and then I think of something that would’ve been good to put in there. But I’m pretty good at moving on. I have had to do it with albums for so many years…so with the book, it wasn’t that hard.”

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One of the most important things that readers will learn about Clint Black through Killin’ Time: My Life and Music, is why he is the person he is and all the efforts he made to get to this point in his life.

“I realized that growing up with three older brothers, trying to keep up with them, doing the door-to-door salesman thing for four years, selling newspaper subscriptions, being rejected 99.9% of the time, that really set me up and gave me that fight to keep from drowning that you read about in the beginning, it set me up for all those years in the bars where I was not succeeding, but I was on route. I was on my way there. I just didn’t know how close or how far away it was.”

Black continued, “When you’re in that place, it’s easy to lose hope and become discouraged and give up. I was never even close to that, but I was questioning my tactics. I was questioning how I was going about it, what kind of job I have.T his job singing doesn’t allow for time and energy or money to go and make demos. And so I went through a lot of that.”

Just like anyone else, he went through hardship and faced doubt, not knowing if he was on the right path, but 22 No. 1 singles, nearly two dozen gold and platinum awards (U.S. and Canada), and countless awards later, it’s safe to say that all of Black’s hard work has paid off.

Fans can also see many of those milestone moments and artifacts from Black’s career journey on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s new exhibition, Clint Black: The Hard Way on Purpose. The exhibit opened on April 22 and is set to run through August 2027.

Plus, the second leg of his 2026 continues with dates throughout November.

The book is available to be purchased now on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Spotify.