KILLIN’ TIME

The renowned country musician and actor writes affectingly of the school of hard knocks.

Some of Black’s memoir is the usual stuff of rags to pop-culture riches: a childhood marked by near-poverty and constant moves, years of struggle before hitting the big time. Still, Black has a good sense for the meaningful moment, including a Zen koan of an opening in which he faces a choice of either drowning or being bitten by a water moccasin in a Texas bayou. His early life was checkered by a few bad turns, including a spell in the hoosegow after a later-dismissed drug bust and nearly being buried in concrete on a construction job. Early on, though, he recognized that he was cut out to be a musician, even if it took Nashville a few years to catch up to him—and more than that, that he wasn’t content to record others’ songs when he could write his own, which met with objections not just from the Music Row suits but also from his own father, who exclaimed, “Good grief! You just haven’t done enough LIVIN’ to write real country songs.” Black’s resistance to following the dictates of others resulted in plenty of stressful moments, of which he comments, “I started to see why so many singers turned to alcohol and drugs.” He also engaged in his fair share of legal duels with an unscrupulous manager and an unyielding record label. Still, his story has a reasonably happy ending, unlike many a country song: He’s had an enduring marriage, sold boatloads of records, and has been honored by the industry despite refusing “to bend a knee to commercialism” and caring more about art than revenue streams.

Refreshing for its takedown of the worst aspects of the music biz, and for the author’s refusal to take the easy road.