FULLER UP HOME GRIM REAPER PAGE CAUSES OF DEATH SEARCH BY NAME GET IN TOUCH SHAMEFUL DISCLAIMER    Fuller Up The Dead Musician Directory    Leonard Raymond Sipes Tommy Collins March 14, 2000 Age 69  Emphysema    OBITUARY  BIOGRAPHY   LINKS  Buy or Hear the Music         Editor's Pick:  Leonard  Tommy Collins Box Set

OBITUARY 

Songwriter Tommy Collins --Haggard's "Leonard" -- Dead at 69 By Edward Morris   Songwriter Tommy Collins --  whose life Merle Haggard  celebrated in his 1981 hit  "Leonard" -- died Tuesday (March  14) at his home in Ashland City  near Nashville. He was 69 years  old and had long been suffering  from emphysema. Last  September, Collins was inducted  into the Nashville Songwriters Hall  of Fame.  Born Leonard Raymond Sipes in  Bethany, Okla., on Sept. 28, 1930,  Collins moved to California in the  early 1950s to pursue a music  career. He soon began performing on the "Town Hall Party"  radio show and in 1953 signed to Capitol Records. His first hit  for the label was "You Better Not Do That," one of his own  compositions. It held the No. 2 spot on the Billboard charts for  seven weeks.  Collins continued to chart singles over the next 14 years, his last  five for Columbia Records. His Top 10 successes were:  "Whatcha Gonna Do Now" (1954), "Untied" (1955), "It Tickles"  (1955) and "If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl" (1966).  One of the first to recognize the talents of Buck Owens, Collins  used Owens as his lead guitarist on several Capitol recording  sessions and for his first appearance at the Ryman Auditorium in  1954.  In early 1955, Faron Young's recording of Collins' "If You Ain't  Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')" climbed to No. 2. George Strait cut the  same song in 1988 and boosted it to No. 1.   Unfulfilled by the music business, Collins enrolled at Golden  Gate Baptist Seminary in 1957 to study for the ministry. He  subsequently worked as a Southern Baptist pastor for five years  before returning to music full time.  Merle Haggard recorded his first Tommy Collins song -- "Sam  Hill" -- in 1964 and then moved on to such Collins-penned hits as  "Carolyn" (1971) and "The Roots of My Raising" (1976), both  of which went No. 1. Mel Tillis scored a Top 10 in 1984 with  Collins' "New Patches."  Collins is the second member inducted into the Nashville  Songwriters Hall of Fame last year to die. A. L. "Doodle" Owens  passed away on Oct. 4.  Collins is survived by his wife, Hazel, three daughters and two  sons.        Country.com Music News        Tommy Collins; Writer of Country Music Hits                                                  Tommy Collins, 69, country music songwriter whose work                                             was turned into hits by Merle Haggard, George Strait and Ferlin                                             Husky. Born Leonard Sipes near Bakersfield, the songwriter was                                             renamed by Husky in honor of the mixed cocktail called Tom                                             Collins. He helped shape the "Bakersfield sound" of country music                                             and became a major influence on other country stars, including                                             Buck Owens, before relocating to Nashville. He was inducted into                                             the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Sept. 19, which he said                                             was "one of the best thrills of my life." Collins, who also sang and                                             recorded, scored five Top 10 hits between 1954 and 1966 and                                             wrote a total of 22 songs for Haggard. Among his best-known                                             songs were Haggard's "Carolyn" and "The Roots of My Raising,"                                             and "If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')" first popularized in                                             1954 by Faron Young and again in 1988 by Strait. He also wrote                                             "You'd Better Not Do That" and "If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl"                                             and, with Haggard, "Mixed Up Mess of a Heart." Haggard wrote                                             his own 1981 hit "Leonard" as a tribute to Collins. On Tuesday in                                             Ashland City, Tenn., of emphysema. ~Los Angeles Times      NY TIMES

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

All-Music Guide   Born: Sept. 28, 1930 in Bethany, OK Died: March 14, 2000 in Ashland City, TN    Along with his contemporary Wynn Stewart, Tommy Collins was one of the first country musicians to establish a distinctive Bakersfield, California sound. During the course of the '50s, he released a series of hit singles that lightened up the tone of honky tonk with bouncing back beats, novelty lyrics and electric guitars. Collins explored a more serious side with his ballads, yet they continued to sound slightly different than his peers -- though they weren't as polished as the countrypolitain coming out of Nashville, they didn't have the grit of honky tonk. Legions of West Coast country performers -- most notably Buck Owens, who played guitar on several of Tommy's hit singles, and Merle Haggard -- built on the sound that Collins established in the early '50s. Collins wasn't able to cash-in on the Bakersfield craze of the '60s. By then, he had already quit the music business once, and was mounting a marginally successful comeback. Nevertheless, his influence loomed large, particularly on Haggard, who took Collins' "Carolyn" and "The Roots of My Raising" to the top of the charts in the early '70s.   Collins (b. Leonard Raymond Sipes) was born just outside of Oklahoma City, spending his entire   childhood in Oklahoma, where his father worked for the county. As a child, he began to sing and write songs, eventually appearing on local radio shows. Following his high-school graduation in 1948, he attended Edmond State Teachers College while he continued to perform music. During this time, he made a handful of singles for the California-based record label, Morgan. In the early '50s, he was in the army for a brief time, before he moved to Bakersfield, California with his friend Wanda Jackson and her family. Shortly afterward, the Jackson family moved back to Oklahoma, leaving Tommy Collins alone in Bakersfield.   In a short time, Collins had begun to make friends and contacts within the city, eventually becoming friends with Ferlin Husky and the pair roomed together. After recording a handful of Collins' songs, Husky convinced his record company, Capitol, to offer Tommy a record contract and the fledging singer/songwriter signed to the label in June of 1953; at the time of signing, he adopted his stage-name of Tommy Collins, since it sounded more commercial than Leonard Sipes. Capitol and Tommy immediately assembled a backing band, which featured a then-unknown Buck Owens on lead guitar. Following one unsuccessful single, Collins' released the jaunty "You Better Not Do That," which became a huge hit in early 1954, spendind seven weeks at number two on the country charts. Since the song was a success, Collins continued to pursue a light-hearted, near-novelty direction with his subsequent hits and the formula initially worked. Between the fall of 1954 and the spring of 1955, he had three Top 10 hits -- "Whatcha Gonna Do Now," "Untied," "It Tickles" -- and in the fall of 1955, the double A-sided single "I Guess I'm Crazy" and "You Oughta See Pickles Now," which both reached the Top 15. In addition to these hit singles, Faron Young had a huge hit with Tommy's "If You Ain't Lovin'," which was one of many songs that Collins wrote but didn't record that became hits.   Collins was on the fast road to major success, but it stopped just as soon as it began. Tommy had a religious conversion in early 1956, and much of the material he recorded that year was sacred music; occasionally, he recorded duets with his wife Wanda Lucille Shahan as well. In 1957, Collins enrolled in the Golden Gate Baptist Seminary with the intention of becoming a minister. Two years later, he became a pastor. During all of his religious teachings, Collins continued to record for Capitol, but neither himself or the label were much interested in promoting his records, and he had no hits. When his contract with the label expired in 1960, he stopped recording and enrolled as a student at Sacramento State College. For the next two years, he studied at the university.   In early 1963, Collins decided he was unfulfilled by the ministry, so he left the church and headed back to Bakersfield with the intention of re-entering the music business. Capitol agreed to re-sign him and in 1964, he returned to the lower reaches of the charts with "I Can Do That," a duet with his wife Wanda.   With the help of Johnny Cash, Collins switched labels and signed with Columbia in 1965; the following year, he had a Top 10 hit with "I Can't Bite, Don't Growl." For the next few years, he had a string of minor hit singles, none of which cracked the country Top 40. During this time, he also toured with his protegees, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, acting as their opening act. By the early '70s, both Collins' professional and personal lives were on the verge of collapse, due to his increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol. In 1971, Wanda filed for a divorce, sending Tommy into a deep depression.   Collins began to recover by continuing to write songs, many of which were recorded by Merle Haggard, including the 1972 number one hit single "Carolyn." In 1976, Tommy moved to Nashville, where he was able to secure a contract with Starday Records. Later that year, he released Tommy  Collins Callin', a collection of his own versions of songs he had provided for other artists. Following  the album's reelase, Tommy turned almost entirely to professional songwriting. In 1981, Merle Haggard had a hit single with "Leonard," his tribute to Collins. After the release of "Leonard," the spotlight again turned to Collins, who was now sober. Tommy signed a songwriting contract with Sawgrass Music, where his most notable success was Mel Tillis' Top 10 1984 hit, "New Patches."   Throughout the '80s, Collins kept a low profile, though his songs continued to be recorded. George Strait recorded no less than two of Tommy's compositions during the decade, taking his new version of "If You Ain't Lovin'" to number one on the country charts. European record companies like Bear Family began reissuing his recordings, which led to an appearance at the 1988 Wembley Country Music Festival in England. In 1993, Collins signed a new publishing contract with Ricky Skaggs Music and continued to write songs professionally throughout the mid-'90s. -- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

 

LINKS

Rockabilly Hall of Fame TC tribute Bakersfield Sound

 

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