Collin Raye – a country music artist best known for hits like “Love Me,” “In this Life” and “Little Rock” – associates Warsaw with Valentine’s Day. “Four years ago I did a show at the same theater (Wagon Wheel Theatre). I remember that because it was on Valentine’s Day. So now I associate Valentine’s Day with Warsaw,” Raye said during a telephone interview Monday afternoon from Nashville, Tenn. He returns to the Wagon Wheel Saturday, with special guest local musician Ivory West. Tickets range from $29 to $39 (does not include a $3 service charge on all tickets) and are on sale now by visiting www.wagonwheeltheatre.org or by calling the box office at 574-267-8041. Besides touring this year, Raye has two big projects coming up. His tribute album to Glen Campbell comes late summer or early fall, and his autobiography comes out in August. “I didn’t plan to make it that way. Fate just had it work out that way,” he said about the two projects coming out at nearly the same time. Raye reported the tribute album was just finished. “It looks like it will be a Cracker Barrel release. I had that in mind anyway because it fits that demographic,” he said. Since he was 9 years old, Raye said he’s always loved Campbell and his music. “I always thought he was the best,” he said. When Raye got into the country music business and got a record deal, one of the first big names he met was Campbell. They’ve been friends now for 23 years. Now that Campbell is suffering from Alzheimer’s, Raye wanted to do the tribute album while Campbell can still enjoy it. Tribute albums are often done after someone’s dead, but Raye didn’t want that to happen with this one. Raye’s mother also has dementia. She’s the person who inspired him to go into the country business, he said, and she never stood in his way. “She was very, very proud of when I got my record deal,” Raye said. Now, it’s hard to talk to his mother at her nursing home. She’s physically there, but she’s not always mentally there. “Stuff happens, it is what it is. However, certain days, certain times, you just think it would be nice to have a real conversation with her,” he said. Compared to writing his autobiography, Raye said the tribute album was a breeze. At 52, Raye said he has a lot of stories to tell, but it’s hard to put all the stories down and in a compact way. He loves literature and reading, and wants his book to tell a good story. “My story has plenty of color in it. Lots of ups and downs,” he admitted. Raye didn’t go out and find a publisher for his book, they asked him to write it. “They saw me do some speeches and saw some of my interviews, and they asked me to do it. I guess they thought I had a story to tell,” he said. He compared his life to a roller coaster. He has a lot of ups and high points, but he’s also faced some big drops in his life, too. “Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens,” he said, paraphrasing a well-known quote. What he hopes people get from his book is inspiration, he said. Buy he also said some good humor will be a part of it. “The good news is, it’s a really good story,” he said. One good thing Raye likes to do is charity work. Sunday, he took part in a benefit concert in Nashville, Tenn., for the Boston Marathon victims via the Nashville non-profit Conduit Mission. Conduit Mission launched as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in 2007 with the goal of being a “conduit” of resources to the hopeless and hurting, according to the official website. Over the years, Conduit Mission has been influential in starting a child sponsorship program in Haiti, an orphanage in Africa, and has offered immediate disaster relief to Nashville, Haiti, Japan and Alabama. “I was a last minute addition (to the benefit concert lineup), but I always want to say yes if I know who it’s going to,” Raye said. Over the years, he’s also given of himself to many charities that help prevent child abuse. One charitable foundation that’s become really important to him is one that he helped start and whose doors opened in November. The Blessed Chair Foundation helps families who are unable to afford wheelchairs for their disabled children. It was created after Raye’s granddaughter, Haley Bell, died in 2010 from an undiagnosed neurological disorder. Raye said she was fine at birth. At 3 years old, she started regressing, and then at age 5, her health started spiraling downward. When they lost her, Raye said they wanted to make a positive out of the tragedy. The foundation was named from lyrics in the song “She’s with Me,” a song Raye wrote about Haley when she was still alive. Collin sings about her “blessed chair,” which carried Haley everywhere with the family and which greatly improved the quality of Haley’s life. For people like Haley, a wheelchair is the key to the world. They can’t go anywhere without it. Raye always assumed wheelchairs were covered by insurance policies or Medicaid, but that’s not the case, so there are many families working hard to make ends meet but can’t afford a wheelchair for their child. The Blessed Chair Foundation seeks to reach and help these families. Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Riverton High School, Salt Lake City, Utah, on the day the foundation opened its doors, the foundation got off to a good start, Raye said. It’s grown from that and “it seems like people want to help,” he said. For the rest of the year, with the recording and the writing done, Raye said he’s just going to be touring. The tour is called “That’s My Story” tour, like his book, “That’s My Story: The Undefeated Life of Collin Raye.” The tour is a celebration of his life and he will play most of his hit songs. During the show, he said he tries to take the concert-goers on a good journey. He might have gained weight and lost some hair, but his ability to play out and put on a good show is still intact, he said. He concluded, “I appreciate people wanting to come out and hear these shows, too.” For more information on Raye, visit his official website at www.collinraye.com
