Long before country music fans heard collaborations with country artists and their spouses like, Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown and Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd, there was Clint Black and his wife Lisa Hartman Black.
The power couple, who met in 1990 on New Year’s Eve in Houston, TX, and married a year later, have released several duets together. All that despite the fact that Lisa had an already impressive resume as a successful actress, appearing in various films and TV shows such as her big break, Knots Landing.
One of the biggest duets for Black and Lisa is a song called “When I Said I Do.” The ballad, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, is still being played at weddings today. Released in 1999, listeners can find “When I Said I Do” on Black’s eighth studio album, D’lectrified – the first album the country singer/songwriter produced by himself.
Black, 61, recently opened up about the duet, his D’lectrified album, his relationship with Lisa, and more, in an interview with Philly’s Country Station 92.5 XTU.
See Clint Black’s Full Interview Below
Of the album, which included an eclectic mix of songs, Black said, “It was to be one part, the unplugged, and one part people who had been an influence on me either recording something of theirs as I did with Marshall Tucker, Leon Russel,l and the Monty Python. And then the other part was having guests, people who had been an influence on me.”
Speaking on those who had heavily influenced him, Black said, “I realized the biggest influence in my life was my wife.”
Knowing Lisa could sing and not having her as a feature on the record didn’t sit well with Black. However, during that thought process, he hadn’t yet penned “When I Said I Do.” Black says he took to the kitchen and began writing a tune that best described the way he and Lisa communicated with each other.
“I’ve got a piece of paper there, and I start writing ‘When I said I Do,’” Black recalled. “I said, ‘This is going to be the song for us.’ She doesn’t know it. So I’m writing this song and I’m thinking, ‘What would we say to each other in front of God and the whole world? What would we sing to each other?”
“So it starts to come out. These times are troubled, and these times are good / And they’re always gonna be,’” he recites. “ So I’m teaching her the chorus as I get it together so she can sing with me. And now I have a chorus. I have our key. I’m writing the verses. It took me two days standing around the kitchen writing this song and teaching it to her. So now it’s finished. And I love what we have and her singing with me.”
The Couple Share Several Memorable Duets
While Black thought he had everything coming together, he says, the toughest part was getting his wife to agree to record the song with him in the studio. After some back and forth talk, Lisa said ‘Yes,’ which resulted in Black’s label RCA getting on board without realizing the woman on the recording was his wife.
“I didn’t tell them who was singing with me,” Black shared. “They tried to guess — it’s Trisha [Yearwood], it’s Martina [McBride]. Who is it? And I told them it was Lisa, and they said, ‘Well, this has to be the first single.’”
After getting the green light from his label, Black realized it was a battle to get Lisa out of her shell to continue the promotion process for the song.
“I told Lisa, ‘You now have to do a music video with me.’ [She said] ‘I’m not doing a music video.’ I talked her into it. ‘Now you have to do The Tonight Show with me.’ [She said], ‘I’m not doing The Tonight Show.’ I talked her into it. ‘Now you’ve got to come out and do this show in Dallas with 20,000 people in the audience.’ [She said], ‘I’m not doing that.’ I talked her into it,” Black explained of his conversations with Lisa.
Luckily for him, Lisa had a change of heart when she performed “When I Said I Do” on stage with her husband by her side.
“The place went nuts that she really accepted what I had been telling her, which is, the fans are going to love this. They want this. They will welcome you. And it calmed her,” Black said. “It just made her let go, and now I can’t get her off stage.”
After releasing “When I Said I Do,” Black and Lisa performed the song dozens of times and also won an ACM Award for Vocal Event of the Year. The song also served as the launching point for several other duets by the couple, including the latest “Til the End of Time,” which dropped in 2020.
