Raye of light
Collin Raye brings mellifluous voice to Gilbert
Last year, Collin Raye decided to mark his silver anniversary as a recording artist with the disc “25 Years, 25 Hits.” It includes virtually all the material that made him a country music heavy-hitter in the ‘90s. There’s emotional, thoughtful fare, party tunes and the kind of feel-good songs that just sound right coming from a car radio. ❚ These aren’t the original recordings, however. Raye and his producer, Kelly Schoenfeld, went into the studio and cut new versions of the tracks while mostly retaining the original arrangements.
“This album thumps a little harder,” Raye says, calling from his Nashville home. “It’s a little meatier, a little crunchier. With the rockers, they were OK the first time around, but now they really rock.”
Even more importantly: The man at the microphone sounds terrific, perhaps even better than he did two decades ago.
“I sing them so much better now than I did then,” Raye says, matter-of-factly. “If you listen to the originals of ‘Love, Me’ or ‘In This Life,’ you can tell I’m still learning. I was still a young man kind of finding my way. I’m still working out my phrasing. Maybe I’m listening to the producers too much, but I’m just singing so carefully.”
Now that he has lived with the songs for several years, he knows how to dig deep into the material.
“You do these songs thousands of times and they become part of you,” he says. “You don’t just sing it; you breathe it.”
At 58, his rangy tenor is in fine shape; he could be Don Henley’s clean-living little brother with that honey-coated voice. Raye is blessed in that he can sound intimate one minute, powerful enough to fill an arena the next. And because he grew up equally influenced by country and pop, he can sing pretty much everything: He sounds at home with both piano man Jim Brickman and honky-tonker Joe Diffie. Raye even can get barroom bluesy; check out his fierce cover of the Stones’ “Brown Sugar” from 1997’s “Stone Country.”
These days, everything Raye sings is tempered with more shading and emotional resonance.
That comes with age, he says. “What made Frank Sinatra so compelling to listen to is that it’s like he’s speaking to you when he sang,” Raye says. “When David Gilmour plays a solo, I want to stop everything I’m doing and listen. I think around 1996 or ‘97, I started to come into that a little bit. It’s the sheer life you live, the ups and downs, the tragedies. Hopefully all that turns you into a more well-rounded, experienced human being.”
Remembering his granddaughter
Among the dark times: His granddaughter, Haley, died in 2010 from a neurological condition that affected her most of her life. She was 9 years old and lived with the singer.
On “25 Years, 25 Hits” (available at his website and concerts), he remembers the youngster through the selfpenned “She’s With Me,” which originally appeared on 2009’s “Never Going Back.” He also includes “Undefeated,” written with Brittany Wray, Haley’s mother and Raye’s daughter, about the girl they both lost.
“It was kind of by popular demand,” to include those songs, he says. “Those songs have taken on a life of their own. They came straight from the heart, and to have them included with hits like “That Was a River,” “Love, Me” and “Little Rock” means a lot to me. I can’t say how many people I encounter who are going through situations where they are just distraught, and they tell me what the songs mean to them.”
“She’s With Me” initially was tough to perform live, but it’s gotten easier.
“If you sing something enough, your brain clicks into this almost autopilot thing,” Raye says. “You think about how you’re sounding and not dwelling too much on the meaning of the lyric, which comes in handy with songs like that.”
A life in music
If life has its ups and downs, so does the music business. Raye scored his last Top 40 hit on the country chart with 2000’s “Couldn’t Last a Moment.” A year later, he parted ways with Sony and hasn’t been signed to a major label since.
He still records, but his efforts reach a smaller audience. That’s a shame. Recent discs such as “Still on the Line,” a loving tribute to Glen Campbell, and the pop-flavored “Everlasting” show a performer at the peak of his vocal powers with an adventurous artistic streak.
Does he miss the days when his albums regularly achieved gold and platinum status?
“At times, but that’s when you really do a self-check,” he says. “Am I trying to be a star or am I trying to be an artist? I always think about Rodney Crowell. He hasn’t been a star in a very long time. I saw him recently and asked if he still writes, and he writes three or four songs a day. That’s an artist right there. To me, it’s like, am I doing this because I want to be popular or am I doing this because it’s inside of me and it has to come out?”
Plus, he says, the days of major labels weren’t always what they were cracked up to be.
“When I was selling 1 or 2 million records, there was this pressure. You were sort of overwhelmed by how much you had to sell. It’s very liberating to take that off your shoulder. I’m just trying to make great pieces of work, and I hope somebody’s going to want to hear it.”
If his concerts are any indication, his fans will remain loyal. He says he sees teenagers at his shows who grew up listening to his music because of their parents.
“It makes me feel so good that for many families, my music was safe enough to let their kids listen to it,” he says.
Of course, Raye always did have a wholesome, family-man image. He was never marketed as a bad boy or a sex symbol. Heck, he even cut a children’s album, “Counting Sheep,” in 2000.
The image “was not by design,” he says, laughing. “I’ve always come across as pretty sweet, as ‘oh, he’s so nice.’ No one ever saw me as being dangerous, and I never tried to pull that off. I was just myself, and the image kind of developed on its own.
“Some people scream ‘edge,’ but some people don’t. I’m just sweet.”
Reach the reporter at randy.cordova @arizonarepublic.com or 602-4448849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova.
“I’m just trying to make great pieces of work.” Collin Raye on making music without the backing of a major label