Collin Raye
| Collin Raye | |
|---|---|
Raye performing in Washington, D.C. in October 2011.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Floyd Elliot Wray |
| Also known as | Bubba Wray |
| Born |
August 22, 1960 De Queen, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Origin | Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Genres | Country |
| Instruments | Vocals, bass guitar |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Labels |
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| Associated acts | The Wrays |
| Website | www |
Floyd Elliot Wray (born August 22, 1960) is an American country music singer, known professionally as Collin Raye, and previously as Bubba Wray. Under the latter name, he recorded as a member of the band The Wrays between 1983 and 1987. He made his solo debut in 1991 as Collin Raye with the album All I Can Be, which produced his first Number One hit in "Love, Me". All I Can Be was the first of four consecutive albums released by Raye to achieve platinum certification in the United States for sales of one million copies each. Raye maintained several Top Ten hits throughout the rest of the decade and into 2000. 2001's Can't Back Down was his first album that did not produce a Top 40 country hit, and he was dropped by his record label soon afterward. He did not record another studio album until 2005's Twenty Years and Change, released on an independent label.
Between 1991 and 2007, Raye charted 30 singles on the U.S. country charts; he has also charted twice on the Adult Contemporary format as a duet partner on two Jim Brickman songs. Four of Raye's singles have reached Number One on the Billboard country music charts: 1992's "Love, Me" and "In This Life", 1994's "My Kind of Girl", and 1998's "I Can Still Feel You". He has also recorded a total of eleven studio albums, counting a Christmas album and a compilation of lullabies, in addition to releasing a Greatest Hits compilation, a live album, and a live CD/DVD package. His most recent album, Never Going Back, was released via Saguaro Road Records on April 28, 2009.
Floyd Elliot Wray was born in De Queen, Arkansas, on August 22, 1960. His mother, Lois Wray, was a local musician; in the 1950s, she served as an opening act for several Sun Records artists, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. Later, she became a solo musician in her own right; she would occasionally bring both Collin and his brother Scott onstage to sing harmony vocals. By the 1980s, the two brothers began a country-rock band called the Wray Brothers Band, in which Collin assumed the stage name Bubba Wray. The Wray Brothers Band performed primarily in the state of Texas; Corvallis, Oregon; and later in Reno, Nevada; eventually releasing singles on independent labels. By 1986, the band (which had shortened its name to The Wrays) signed to Mercury Records, releasing four singles. After the singles performed poorly on the charts, The Wrays disbanded.
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