A Look Back At Clint Black & Lisa Hartman-Black’s Love Story
on Feb 14, 2016 • Updated Feb 27, 2023
It’s Valentine’s Day, so it only seems fitting that we revisit one of the most popular Country duets of all time. “When I Said I Do” was written and performed by Clint Black and his wife, Lisa Hartman-Black in the late 90’s and went on to receive a Grammy nomination and won the Academy of Country Music’s Vocal Event of the Year in 1999.
The success of “When I Said I Do” can be greatly attributed to the obvious chemistry between the couple singing it. Black, once Music City’s most eligible bachelor, once said that he would never marry because he had too much fun being single. But, one fateful New Year’s Eve night, actress Lisa Hartman and her mother attended a Clint Black concert. As, as they say, the rest is history.
The couple told their story to PEOPLE in 1992, just a few months after they married at Clint’s Houston-area ranch.
“I didn’t know who she was,” Clint recalls of first seeing Lisa backstage at his concert. “But when I saw her standing there with those beautiful blue eyes, I knew I wanted to see her again.”
The couple squeezed in dates in between their busy schedules, but the relationship really took off when they found themselves with a few days off.
“He had four days off, and so did I, and they were the same four days,” says Lisa. “It was like somebody was watching from above and saying, ‘Y’all need to be together.'” Hartman admitted that she was nervous about spending time with Clint, but the nervousness disappeared when he arrived to pick her up. “It wasn’t like I said, ‘Oh, God, I’m in love with this guy,’ it was just there he was and everything was all right,” says Lisa.
When Lisa wrapped the movie she was filming at the time, she joined Clint on the bus for the last two months of his tour. “With Lisa with me, it didn’t matter if I was in a bus or a hotel room or a Winnebago in the middle of the desert, it made it home,” says Clint. He goes on to share that their road routine was “locking ourselves in a hotel room and ordering room service.”
Watch Clint Black and Lisa Hartman-Black perform “When I Said I Do” live in the video below.
