Clint Black's standup journey

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 8th, 2008

We posted earlier about Clint Black’s upcoming appearance on CBS’s Secret Talents of the Stars, in which the country singer will attempt to do standup.

He confesses to “night terrors” at the prospect of doing standup. In an interview on CMT.com, Black says that he experiences “moments of anxiety during the day whenever I’d picture the scene.”

He’s actually trying out material in a live setting at local Nashville club Zanies.

Well, the club wasn’t packed tonight. It was the second time I had gone on stage here at Zanies. The first time, it was packed, and it felt really great. Really great house. Tonight, it was a little thin, and it felt like a little bit more pressure. Maybe my expectations were different now. … But I don’t think probably I will go on stage anywhere and do this and just feel great. I just don’t. I don’t expect it.

Black’s consulting comedian Wayne Federman for help in crafting a set.

We’re impressed with the seriousness with which Black seems to be approaching the task. And we’re also surprised at just how much he appears to understand standup– and just how difficult coming up with original material is:

I can think of something, and it’s funny to me, and I’ll tell it to Wayne or another friend over the phone. And you hear the silence on the other end, look around for the crickets, and you go, “I’ll call you back.” You go back to work on it. I’ve been working on it pretty hard for two or three weeks now. I had about 30 minutes worth of material that was about 90 percent no good, and so I had to work really hard to make that 10 percent feel more like 20 or 30 percent. That’s the thing: identifying the “A” material and then expanding on that and getting rid of the bulk of what was written. It’s not working.

Of the comedy gauntlet he’ll be forced to run, Black is realistic:

Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. I’m going to have to have two minutes in the first show. If I make it through, I’ll have to have two new completely new minutes. And the thought has occurred to me that it’s not going to be easy.

Perhaps he can advise the contestants on the upcoming season of Last Comic Standing.

Nice to see someone humbled by standup. He actually acknowledges that it’s not going to be easy. (And Terry Bumgarner, writing for CMT.com, actually refrained from asking about Black’s enormous ego, his control issues or his dysfunctional childhood!)

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