Ruth Collins

Hey you! I’m Ruth...welcome to my little world! I’m just an ordinary girl-next-door with an extraordinary dream. (Dreams are good. I hope you have lots of them:)

I grew up in rural western NY on a vineyard that’s been in my family for over a hundred years. My grandma was the farmer’s daughter and my grandpa worked on the grapes with her dad. That’s how they met... Cute huh?

Music and writing have been a part of my life since forever…in many ways, thanks to my parents.  My mom was always into music - she was the church choir director, a music teacher, taught piano lessons, and now even teaches music classes for moms and their babies. So naturally, I started young, beginning piano and fiddle lessons when I was just three.   I sang my first solo at church that year – and I also wrote my first song titled “Mr. Bluebird” - my mom swears it was the same every time I sang it! Three was clearly a big year for me ?

But it was middle school when I fell in love with country music. This was 90s country at it’s best - artists like Garth Brooks, Jo Dee Messina and Faith Hill were killing it on country radio and I couldn’t get enough.  I loved the stories they were telling through their songs. My dad, a public school teacher for over 25 years, is a great writer, and a master storyteller.  He encouraged and inspired me to write. So in high school it all came together – inspired by the songs on the radio and blessed by a musical mom and a creative dad, I started writing songs and playing the guitar. I was hooked!

I get asked all the time how a girl from NY could possibly sing country music. Well I have two things to say about that: 1) They play George Straight in the Wal-Mart where I’m from too and 2) My high school mascot was the Fredonia Hillbillies...doesn’t get much more redneck than that, does it?

After graduating high school I attended Berklee College of Music where I majored in songwriting and made some lifelong friends. I fell in love with Boston (go Red Sox!) but I struggled to find my artistic voice during those years. So with hope in my heart I decided to make the move to Music City.

When I moved to Nashville I started to write with everyone I could. I wrote all the time, sometimes several songs in one day and I was blessed by the support and feedback of so many talented co-writers. Within months, I finally felt like I was writing songs that were me, and through these songs, I found my voice.

During this time I formed the duo Wild Honey, with another local songwriter, Victoria Gibson and we were featured on Season 1 of CMT’s Can You Duet. Being on Can You Duet was the wildest experience. One week I’m waiting tables and the next I’m moving into the Opryland Hotel for a month of filming. Suddenly there were cameras and lights shoved in our faces almost 24 hours a day. The stakes were raised in a big way. The best way I can put it is this... where I’m from, a tiny little town in NY, I never dared to dream that big... It’s not that I didn’t want to sing for stadiums of millions of people... It’s just that I never believed that it could happen to a small town girl like me. But all of a sudden, there I was competing on national television for a major label record deal. Can You Duet gave me the push I needed to realize that dreams do come true...even for normal little people like me.

After Can You Duet, it was on. I worked as hard as I could, writing everyday and back to waiting tables, sometimes till 4 in the morning to make ends meet. All that changed when I signed with Curb Records and Curb Publishing in the summer of 2011. That was a quite the summer! Within 3 months I got married, bought a house and signed a record deal! Whew... let me tell you, that was a much needed honeymoon:)

I still live in Nashville, TN, now with my sweet husband and our two tiny dogs (Emmylou and Hazel). And I am so blessed to get to do music everyday. Sometimes when I’m driving down to Music Row in the morning, (that’s where the magic happens here in Nashvegas) I’ll stop for a second and think “I get to hang out with my friends today and write a song”???!!!! “Like for my job”???!!! Crazy!

It is a crazy life, but it’s mine and I love it! I recently recorded my first full length record “Chasing the Rain” with producer Marshall Altman. He’s everything you’d expect a record producer to be. He’s a great songwriter; he’s a little eccentric and absolutely brilliant. He’s worked with a variety of artists: Amy Grant, Matt Nathanson, Audrey Assad and Mark Broussard to name a few. I love that Marshall produces acts in country, contemporary Christian, rock, pop, punk... He pulls from all those genres to create really unique, special sounds. I’m so lucky to have him work on this project with me.

My first record is the result of years of writing songs about the hurts and heartbreaks, joys and blessings, wild rides and sunny days that we all experience. When it came to picking a title, “Chasing t