One of the biggest country stars of the 1990s is making a comeback.
Country star Mark Collie has new music out and a new collaboration with Johnathan Hensleigh, who is the acclaimed screenwriter and director of movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance and Armageddon.
“I was raised up around a lot of great storytellers,” Collie states. “The elders in the family, and my uncles-- folks would spin tales and keep the kids entertained.”
Collie was at the top of the country charts in the early ‘90s. He credits being raised in the small rural town of Waynesboro, Tennessee with inspiring him to pursue music.
“It gave me an opportunity to use my imagination, and as the Lord would have it, that’s what I was going to be called to do,” he explains.
While most remember him with a guitar in hand, he is just as comfortable at the piano.
“Well, I started out playing in the church singing, playing piano. I went to the first school of Jimmy Swaggart Piano you know,” he adds. “I played Swaggart on Sunday and Jerry Lee on Saturday night.”
This song, “Night Train to Memphis,” is the final track on his new album Book of My Blues. This project is different from anything Collie has ever done before.
“Born Ready” is the first single. It is an introduction to Jesse Wayne Hardin. The lead character in a graphic novel called the Rockabilly Hitman.
According to Collie, “It’s kind of a crime tale; a good versus evil story. I began sort of writing songs that might match that, or finding songs that would match the story.”
He goes on to say, “every song on the record has a meaning to the book or chapter of the book. Chapter one is ‘Book of My Blues,’ the song I wrote with Billy Bob Thornton, another great storyteller.”
“This album is about love, lust, temptation, damnation, redemption, or as sometimes I call it the music business Tuesday.”
“Born Ready” is out now, the full album will be ready in June!
For more information about Mark Collie and Book of My Blue, click HERE
For more information on Rockabilly Hitman, click HERE
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