Some context: Clint Patrick Black was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, the youngest of four children born to G.A. and Ann Black, and lived in nearby Red Bank. The family moved back to Texas, where G.A. Black had been raised, before Clint was one year old. He was raised in Katy, Texas. Music was always present in the house.
In March 1992, Black sued his manager, Bill Ham, for breach of contract; Black sought $2 million in damages and requested that Ham return $4 million in royalties. Under the terms of their initial contract, Ham controlled all publishing royalties for any song that Black wrote or co-wrote for his first eight albums. Because Black wrote all of his own music, this amounted to a fee of 20 to 30 cents per album sold. Industry standards generally counseled songwriters to form their own publication companies, so they would be able to retain more of the royalties. Ham promptly countersued, blaming the initial lawsuit on poor advice Black received from his new personal assistant, his mother-in-law Jonni Hartman. His lawyer told the press that "Mr. Ham invested $1 million of his own money in Clint Black's career at a time when nobody else would do so. For that commitment, Mr. Black should show a little gratitude and honor his contracts". By mid-1992, Black's first two albums had sold a combined 5 million copies. The difficulties with Ham caused a delay in the release of Black's third album, The Hard Way, which was released on July 14. The album had been expected the year previously, and during the delay the country music scene changed. Both Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt achieved greater success, and Billy Ray Cyrus became a teen idol. The competition that Black faced was now much stiffer than with his earlier albums. According to Black, he and producer James Stroud spent more time putting this album together than either of those preceding and were "a lot more aggressive in the way we cut and mixed the album". Black was also more satisfied with the vocals on this album. Several of the songs on The Hard Way, including "Burn One Down", were initially reported to be Black's responses to his situation with Ham. Co writer Nicholas refuted the rumors, maintaining that most of those songs were written in the late 1980s. To promote the album, Black launched The Hard Way Tour on June 26, 1992. The tour ran for 11 months. Reviewers noticed that with this album Black presented a "new, sexier image", wearing tighter clothing and in many cases leaving behind his trademark hat. Black commented simply that he was bored wearing the hat all the time.
Did Ham and him remain friends after that?
A:
Some context: Jean-Philippe Rameau (French: [Zafilip Ramo]; (1683-09-25)25 September 1683 - (1764-09-12)12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside Francois Couperin. Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe.
Unlike Lully, who collaborated with Philippe Quinault on almost all his operas, Rameau rarely worked with the same librettist twice. He was highly demanding and bad-tempered, unable to maintain longstanding partnerships with his librettists, with the exception of Louis de Cahusac, who collaborated with him on several operas, including Les fetes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (1747), Zais (1748), Nais (1749), Zoroastre (1749; revised 1756), La naissance d'Osiris (1754), and Anacreon (the first of Rameau's operas by that name, 1754). He is also credited with writing the libretto of Rameau's final work, Les Boreades (c. 1763). Many Rameau specialists have regretted that the collaboration with Houdar de la Motte never took place, and that the Samson project with Voltaire came to nothing because the librettists Rameau did work with were second-rate. He made his acquaintance of most of them at La Poupliniere's salon, at the Societe du Caveau, or at the house of the Comte de Livry, all meeting places for leading cultural figures of the day. Not one of his librettists managed to produce a libretto on the same artistic level as Rameau's music: the plots were often overly complex or unconvincing. But this was standard for the genre, and is probably part of its charm. The versification, too, was mediocre, and Rameau often had to have the libretto modified and rewrite the music after the premiere because of the ensuing criticism. This is why we have two versions of Castor et Pollux (1737 and 1754) and three of Dardanus (1739, 1744, and 1760).
Why didn't he work with the same librettists twice?
A:
He was highly demanding and bad-tempered, unable to maintain longstanding partnerships with his librettists,