TOMMY COLLINS, "BLACK CAT" C/W "MY LAST CHANCE WITH YOU," CAPITOL 4495 (REL.12/1960)

Leonard Sipes became one of Capitol Records’ country stars in the first half of the 1950s. As Tommy Collins, he had six country chart hits from 1954 to ’55. After that, though Capitol kept Collins on their roster into 1960, he had no more success with his music. He popularized the new sound from Bakersfield, California—a lean, playful approach that emphasized the electric guitar and bass guitar, embraced drums and was another template for the new sound of rock ‘n’ roll.

Why Collins failed after 1955 is puzzling. One factor is that his sound didn’t develop as country music reacted to the perceived threat of rock ‘n’ roll. Nashville overstepped its bounds with its panic-induced Nashville Sound, which adopted the worst tropes of popular music and created blandness with few exceptions. Bakersfield pretended that nonsense wasn’t there and soldiered on with sparse, hard-hitting and sincere sounds that helped Nashville come to its senses in the 1960s.

Today we’ll hear Tommy Collins’ last single for Capitol before he took a multi-year hiatus. Collins, like country artist and songwriter Dave Rich, found religion and decided against his worldly ways. He became a preacher and divorced himself from the honky-tonks and highways of his former profession.

In doing so, he missed out on an exciting stretch of musical innovation. Capitol welcomed him back in 1964 when the ministerial life didn’t pan out for him, and it was business as usual. The style of country had changed in his absence, but Bakersfield still held strong, with chart king Buck Owens, whose catchy, hook-laden singles got on the pop charts and inspired a cover version of the song “Act Naturally” by The Beatles.

Collins’ final record of Phase I was a delightful, upbeat rocker called “Black Cat.” It’s not country; it resembles Buck Owens’ records of the mid-1960s in its sound and energy. This bopper is one of those perfect li’l songs, and its story of acceptance and getting over stereotypes is believable and admirable. Rockabilly fans covet this record for its great sound and hot guitar pickin’, but there’s a message tucked into this song that reveals itself without a heavy hand. Draw your own conclusions…

>>> Hear it HERE! <<<

Cash Box and Billboard reviewed this single in their December 31, 1960 editions. Each saw a different side as their pick for success. Neither guess proved correct.

The flip-side of an exceptional song can’t help but disappoint. “My Last Chance with You” is a nice country ballad with that appealing Bakersfield honky-tonk sound. It’s a march-tempo waltz with vocal chorus; well-done for what it is, but lacking distinction, beyond its morbid adoption of the Nashville Sound formula. Nothing bad going on here; just a B-side with no illusions. It must have gotten jukebox plays in honky-tonks. This was the last anyone outside a church would hear from Tommy Collins for a few years.

>>> Hear it HERE! <<<

Tommy’s buddy Buck Owens kept Collins’ flame alive with a concept album devoted to his pal’s distinctive songs. Buck Owens Sings Tommy Collins was a best-seller for Capitol in 1964 and may have encouraged the evangelist/singer to come back to the Bakersfield fold. Collins died in 1990 having seen his songs covered by country giants from George Jones to George Strait. Bear Family Records issued a CD boxed set of his Capitol material and just put out Black Cat, a boppin’-oriented compilation, in their long-running Gonna Shake This Shack series. They still make great CDs and deserve your support so they can keep going in this dwindling market.

Tomorrow: the first of four days to document a mind-blowing recent find. I was just killing time when I entered a record store and…bam! First up, a tough 1957 platter by Little Esther, from the great Savoy label. One song’s by the always-great Charlie Singleton and Rose Marie McCoy. And there’s more to come!