ABOUT 20 years ago American country music singer Collin Raye signed a major deal with Epic Records and almost overnight became a big name on the Nashville scene.
Throughout the 1990s he scored a succession of Top 10 singles on the Billboard country music charts and in 1995 received a Video of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music. Yet by 2000 Raye had enough of record label ups and downs and decided to go the independent route.
The gamble has mostly paid off. His large fan base in the American South and Midwest have stayed with him and in recent years he has toured Europe. As part of an extensive Irish tour later this month he plays the Town Hall Theatre on Saturday May 30 at 8pm.
The state of Arkansas, where Raye was born and raised, has given the world many great musicians down through the years including Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Levon Helm of The Band, and Conway Twitty. Even two of the state’s most prominent politicians, Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee, played musical instruments during their Presidential campaigns. It was no surprise that Raye was drawn towards a career in music.
“From about the age of 15 I had decided that music was what I wanted to do,” he tells me. “I wasn’t any good as a performer at that point but I knew I had the potential that I could be. When I started out as a singer Glen Campbell and Don Henley of The Eagles were my biggest influence because my voice was quite similar to theirs.
“I always loved Glen Campbell’s sound and I listened to his records over and over again to try and copy him a little bit. I’ve since met him a couple of times and he laughs when I tell him how I always wanted to sound like him.”
The talent and potential that Raye displayed from an early age can be attributed to his own musical heritage as his mother Lois Wray was a musician in the 1950s who played support to many big names.
“She performed with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash when they came through the area on big tours,” says Raye. “That would’ve been about 1956 and I was born in 1960. She did all these great shows before I was born and then later she went on to have a pretty good career as a nightclub singer. She played the casinos in Nevada and made a few independent records.
“In my first press biography I mentioned about her playing alongside several of the Sun Records artists and she got such a buzz telling people about meeting Elvis because she loved him so much. I suppose not many people can say that not only did they open a show for Elvis but they actually got on stage with him and sang backing vocals.”
Raye is incredibly proud of what his mother achieved as a performer and he was determined to emulate that success. He stayed focused on his goal for 15 years and good fortune shone upon him when, just shy of his 30th birthday, he signed his first major record deal.
When he arrived in Nashville he knew hardly anyone but a fellow Arkansas native was there to show him around and make him welcome.
“All the stories you hear about Johnny Cash are absolutely true,” says Collin. “He was a truly great man and he always made the newcomers to Nashville feel welcome. I’m proud to say I got to know him pretty well before he passed away and he always treated me as an equal. I recorded the song ‘Big River’ on my third album and it was sort of done in tribute to him. Cash is in the Hall of Fame for rock‘n’roll, country, folk, and gospel and he was all of those things. What he did for music was absolutely phenomenal.”
The ascendancy of Collin Raye in Music City was equally phenomenal as his debut single ‘Love Me’ climbed to the top of the charts and his debut album All I Can Be sold more than one million copies. In 1997 Raye released his first Greatest Hits package but it became more and more apparent to him that he was not getting the financial returns he had expected.
“I knew absolutely nothing about the business and signed a contract that maybe I shouldn’t have signed,” he says. “There were so many hidden things in there that were designed to benefit the label and not the artist. That is just so commonplace to happen though because you need the record label so much in the beginning. The music in the music business is wonderful but the business in the music business is horrible.”
Raye parted ways with his label in 2001. By that time he had sold more than eight million albums and was one of the big American country music stars. What was the highlight of those heady years in the spotlight?
“I was touring around and my bus driver told me I had the number one song in the whole country,” he says. “I had many more number one records after that but that first one was really special. My dream had been accomplished and I had arrived.”
Tickets to see Collin Raye are available from Town Hall Box Office on 091 - 569777.
