When Singer-Songwriter Nick Collins Broke His Silence-And Gave A Die-hard Fan His Autograph

By Sarah Le Moyne

It drives my partner, my love, Jenny, crazy with jealousy but I have always had a crush on the legendary reclusive rock and roll, blues too guitarist, lyricist and song-writing Nick Collins since I was in middle school (and before I became aware of my sexual preferences). Jenny does not understand this long-term infatuation, that it is totally possible to have a schoolgirl crush without it meaning anything sexual or otherwise. I, we have never seriously discussed attitudes toward men, but she is probably off of the Nick Collins tirade she raised more hostile than I am to the gender.     

But back to Nick Collins whom I first heard on the radio at home on some parents gone out Saturday night and I was minding my younger sisters when I heard his cover of To Each This Own, a slow dreamy ballad filled with sentimental longings (of which I was filled with as well) and then switching up to Tumbling Down, a classic Collins rocker. That pair along with the bluesy Don’t Bring On Your Love So Strong staples of my youthful infatuation (and still can move me). I admit, freely admit that I would go to Marla’s Variety Store a few streets over and grab any fan magazine she had in stock that had something about Nick Collins in it.

Here is the funny part, or the first part of this funny story when you think about it. There was very little really known about Nick, most of the stuff in the fan and celebrity magazines was, well, bullshit, press agent hand-out stuff or stuff whoever wrote the story made up. The truth is that onstage Nick Collins was a mad man, an oldtime rocker in the Chuck Berry mode, a blues man out of T-Bone Walker or a jazz/ballad man out of Frankie Devine but once he left the stage he was gone, nobody could find him. The legendary parties he supposedly threw were real enough but strictly record company or later film company galas-minus Nick. So people speculated if it had to do with is slight speech impediment, others his tough Billie Holiday-like upbringing and yet others that he was so strung out on junk that he had to hide, had to hide the pain too I would think or risk arrest or bad publicity exposure when junkies we not well thought of  no matter how good they made audiences feel through their pain.        

Here is the end shot of the funny part. Apparently Nick was used to wearing some kind of disguise or something like that to avoid the screaming teenagers and their mothers who mobbed him or tried to. One late night in the Houston Airport though Rhonda Frank had been waiting for a delayed flight bringing home her brother when she spotted (through the disguise) Nick Collins who seemed to have taken up taking late flights out. She raced up to him and without letting him deny who he was asked for his autograph. Expecting a first no Rhonda was prepared to press the issue, make a scene. But no, she did not have to because Nick must have a little funny quirk in him somewhere since he merely said “sure” since Rhonda had proved, unlike a million photographers, to be a very good detective. I sure wish I had a Nick Collins autograph but don’t tell Jenny that.