Collin Raye

A country superstar with a knack for ballads, Collin Raye was born Floyd Ellipt Wray on August 22, 1960 to a mother who had established a career as a country music performer, occasionally bringing her sons on stage with her to sing. Wray formed The Wray Brothers Band with his sibling, Scott. They tried to make it throughout the 80s, but released just a smattering of singles that barely scraped the country charts. He went solo in the 90s, signing with Epic and settling on the stage name Collin Raye, and began a notable run of fourteen consecutive top 10 country singles from 1991-1996 which included the chart toppers “Love, Me”, “In This Life”, and “My Kind of Girl”. All but one of his first six albums landed in the top 10 on the country chart. The hit singles kept coming, with an additional streak of a half dozen top 5 country singles from 1997-1999 including the number 1 “I Can Still Feel You”. After the disappointing performances of the singles from 2001’s Can’t Back Down, Raye parted from Epic for smaller independent labels. He would continue to release new albums every few years, including Never Going Back, which hit number 40 on the country album chart, in 2009. He published an autobiography in 2014.