Collin Raye Is Waiting for ‘the Right Situation’ to Record New Music

Collin Raye still spends much of his time on the road, belting out his classics such as "Love, Me" and "Little Rock." The singer says that he is happy to perform fan favorites, and isn't in a hurry, or in the mood, to introduce any new tunes.

"To be honest, it would have to be the right situation, because to bring out new Collin Raye music, it's like, ‘Well, where does that fit with where country music is currently?’" Raye tells The Boot. "My time was such a good time for me to have in the ‘90s, because it was such a wide loop, and country music was reaching such a wide audience; it was lots of different pockets of it. It wasn’t just one division; there were multiple ones."

Raye acknowledges that he may not have had the success that he did if he had been brought up in another generation.

"I don’t know if I would have succeeded in any other time, to the level that I did, had it not been that time," he concedes. "I was cutting some socially relevant songs -- not all of them, but quite a few, had pretty heavy lyrics, and we made No. 1 songs out of them. I don’t think that would happen today.

"So to go in and cut new songs again, I don’t want to go to the effort of doing that," Raye adds, "unless I feel like it’s going to land."

Raye does, however, have his eyes on a special project: an album of Hank Williams songs, as an homage to the country music icon.

“In the last couple years, I see myself primarily as a singer of great songs,” Raye notes, “whether they’re my songs or other people’s songs.”

Fans can keep up to date with Raye on his website.