by Jeff Foster, Guitarist and Webmaster of the StringDancer Guitar Community
The history of Country Music has no shortage of stories about talented men and women who gave everything they had in a quest for art, fame and fortune. Some of these stories are well-known to country fans because the artists in question eventually achieved great success. Other stories have either faded with the fortunes of the artists, or were never told to begin with -- except perhaps by the artists themselves, their hard-core fans and family.
These seldom-heard tales provide the most interesting backdrop to the Country Music experience. Stories of endless touring, playing long hours through crappy sound systems in rough, smoky honky tonks, and the seemingly unavoidable drunken brawls, broken marriages, and unscrupulous managers, agents and record labels endured along the way (plus a host of other pitfalls) are told on bar stools, fishing boats and living room couches every day.
As often as not, these tales of musical aspiration, raucous good times and personal misfortune elicit a good belly-laugh. Sometimes the stories are heartwrenchingly sad. Other tales, frankly, will make a person stop and wonder at the sanity of people driven to give their all in pursuit of such a crazy dream. How is it someone would willingly subject themselves to the machinations of the industry, knowing the odds of success are so small? We may never know the answer to that one. But in the meantime, we can relish (and hopefully learn from) the stories of those who enjoyed a bit of fame, a memorable rush into the high-stakes world of commercial Country Music, and lived to tell the tale.
Such a man is my friend Sam Collins. Sam and I go way back to when he had just returned to his home in Bloomington Indiana after an extended dance with the Nashville machine. He was playing in a local bar, and needed a guitar player to add the twang a good country band needs. Thus began a long friendship, and now that friendship has brought me to this page, after having recently digitized and produced a CD anthology project of some of Sam's classic country recordings. So I figure, a man like Sam deserves a webpage, and this little site will serve, hopefully, to offer some insights into the roller-coaster career of a Nashville survivor.
Sam is from that generation of fine, old-school Country Music. As in, back before Country became the genre where rock & roll went to die... back before pin-up potential supplanted singing skills as the main selling point of an artist... back when "crossover" was something you did to a hill. Sam spent most of the 70s and 80s courting favor in Nashville, rubbing shoulders, kicking back the whiskey and making music with some of Nashville's best songwriters and performers. Touring incessantly and working the powers that be were his lot in those days, and Sam lived the part to the fullest.
After many years of success peppered with disappointment, our man Sam decided to return to his home in Bloomington, downsizing his operation and resuming what might be called a normal life. He continued to gig around Indiana and Kentucky for many years, and these days is semi-retired from the biz (it's all I can do to get him up onstage with me to kick off a tune or two). A ham-fisted fighter and hard-drinking maniac in his day, today Sam has given up the sauce, works seasonally for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and lives quietly in the country with his wife of many years, Polly. He's a kind-hearted man... but even today, you wouldn't want to get on his bad side. He has zero tolerance for liars and cheats, and tends to hold strong opinions.
Over time, I hope to flesh out this site with more on Sam. For now, let's get back to his CD project.
Sam and I had been talking about digitizing some of his old LP and 45 releases for quite some time. Early in 2008, we decided to tackle the project in earnest. As I hadn't owned a turntable for years, he managed to acquire one for me, and I hooked up the unit to my iMac, tweaked the tracks a bit to enhance the sound, and began digitally recording the music. Fortunately, the copy he provided of his 1981 LP, Alimony Blues, was in fine shape, and I was able to create fairly clean reproductions of the tunes. His small stack of 45s proved to be considerably rougher, but I did my best to record them with as little needle noise as possible.
Long out of print, these recordings are now available in CD format. Interested parties should contact Sam directly to arrange purchasing a CD. In the future, hopefully we'll have this page set up to accept PayPal payments online.
CD Playlist
(Click the arrow button to play a track)
Tracks from Sam's 1981 album, Alimony Blues
1 - Alimony Blues
2 - In A Booth In The Back
3 - Marianne The Housewife
4 - Right Back Where I Started From
5 - I'm Still Here
6 - Hard Times
7 - Train To Louisville
8 - Be Thankful
9 - Sleeping Beauty
10 - Pour The Wine
Single Tracks from 45s
11 - Mr. Auctioneer
12 - Distant Drums
13 - Last Letter
14 - Memories of 43
15 - Next Greyhound Going Home
16 - Traveling Man
