Clint Black reflected on his decades-spanning journey after making a purposeful decision “to do things the hard way for the sake of my miusic.”

The “Killin’ Time” star, 64, celebrated the opening of the new Clint Black: The Hard Way On Purpose exhibit on Tuesday evening (April 21) at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. Black’s life and career is chronicled in awards, set lists, manuscripts, stage wear, photos, videos and other artifacts now on display.

“I have to look at it again because it was so hard to absorb it all,” Black said in an interview with iHeartCountry. “I think the biggest treat was to see it with my wife and daughter [Lisa Hartman Black and Lily Pearl Black], and hear their reactions and to be able to tell them what some of these things are and what they represented to me.”

‘It’s Humbling… It Was Thrilling. It Was Moving.’

Black gazed at the items in the exhibit, pointing out the sales award he received for selling newspaper subscriptions as a kid. He reflected on everything from his childhood with his three older brothers in Houston, Texas, to his “breakout years, ’89 and ’90, when so much was happening, it was difficult to keep my feet under me and my head on my shoulders. …. It was really thrilling just looking through this stuff that I haven't seen in maybe 30 years in some cases.”

Black earned four Academy of Country Music Awards in 1990 for the album he entirely wrote or co-wrote, and recorded in Houston with his road band and James Stroud, a “rookie producer” at the time, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Months later, Black added the Country Music Association’s Male Vocalist of the Year honor to his growing collection, among many other accolades. Though he endured pressure to record songs written by others, Black remained determined to write or co-write his own music. He went on to to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1991, perform during the 1994 Super Bowl Halftime Show, receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, start his own record company in the early 2000s and more, per the Hall of Fame.

“It's a great honor,” Black told iHeartCountry at his exhibit opening celebration on Tuesday. “They put a lot of work into this and a lot of care in laying out my story. …When people put that kind of work into it, it's humbling. I feel very honored.” Black said it “was a total surprise,” to learn that he’d have his own exhibit in the Hall of Fame. “It was thrilling. It was moving. I don't expect things like that,” the 2025 Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) Icon Award recipient said.

The Hard Way On Purpose

Erin Osmon, writer/editor and co-curator of the exhibit, began collaborating with Black in September 2025, and he “was wonderful to work with,” she said. “It was a lovely process. …He literally said to me, ‘I am excited to see how you tell my story.’ …He, from day one, wanted to be a songwriter. He plays multiple instruments. He wrote or co-wrote most of his catalog. And I think that's what I tried to emphasize and I think that's what's so exceptional about him.”

The title of the exhibit, which combines the titles of Black’s 1992 album with his 2015 project, “was really digging into his narrative arc,” Osmon explained. “I was a teenager in the 1990s, and I understood Clint as sort of this pop star in a way, right? He was as big as Garth Brooks, and he had a high-profile marriage and he was an actor. And so, I didn't realize that at his core, his core identity is as a singer-songwriter. I didn't realize that he wrote or co-wrote all 29 of his Top 10 hits. That's something that was new to me. And I thought, ‘how many stars of his caliber do that?’ And then when I talked to him and learned about his origins in Houston and just how much he studies and admires songwriters, I realized like, ‘oh, he did things a different way.’ And I kind of went from there.”

Black said he “chose to do things the hard way for the sake of my music,” earlier in his career. “So, The Hard Way On Purpose, when I heard that, I think that's what I did. I think that's how I did things.” Between the Hall of Fame exhibit and the country icon’s upcoming memoir, Killin’ Time: My Life and Music, Black said it’s been “overwhelming, at times,” reflecting on his stories. While writing his book, Black said he spent hours writing and editing, and reading it was a “surprisingly emotional process.”

‘A More Personal Look’ Into The Icon’s Life

“And it's the same with this,” he continued, looking at the Clint Black: The Hard Way On Purpose exhibit. “I couldn't take it all in so quickly, fully, but it's a lot of years to look back on. A lot of great years. So much happened, so much more than we could tell in a book or an exhibit. So, I'm thrilled that all the fans that come through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will get to have a glimpse of all those years that built me and built my career.” Osmon pointed out that the exhibit also includes handwritten lyrics when Black co-wrote a song with late legend Merle Haggard in the early ‘90s. Black “didn’t know they existed,” she said, and it “felt like we’d struck gold.”

Black said museum visitors will get to see “a more personal look at the things that they've seen (over the years), the guitars that have been on stage, as well as the things that they wouldn't have seen, the personal photos, sales award, this one-of-a-kind guitar, really, that Gibson made for me, a set list from the club days. …I'm still doing 80 shows a year on the road. I'm getting back on the bus tomorrow. I've been asked why, why I still work that hard and it's because it's a great job and I'm not ready to quit. And I still think I can get better at it.

“I never look forward to leaving home, but I always look forward to the shows.”

Black will take part in an intimate conversation about his memoir at 6 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater on Saturday, May 23. Clint Black: The Hard Way On Purpose is included with admission into the museum. It’s open now through August 2027. Scroll below to see photos from the exhibit opening celebration, and catch a glimpse of some of the artifacts in the exhibit.