In February 1981, Merle Haggard released a single with a title that puzzled plenty of country fans. It was just one word: “Leonard.” The song climbed to No. 9 on the Billboard country chart. But the man it was named for had not used that name in public for nearly thirty years.
Leonard was Leonard Raymond Sipes. Country music knew him as Tommy Collins.
The song Merle wrote for a friend
Merle Haggard recorded “Leonard” in 1980 for his album Back to the Barrooms, the record that also gave him the No. 1 hit “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” Merle wrote it himself, and it was not a song about a stranger. It was a portrait of a friend and mentor.
In the song, Merle looks back on what Tommy Collins meant to him in the early days. He credits Tommy with inspiring him and helping teach him how to write a country song. He even remembers Tommy showing up with groceries, back in the years before “Okie from Muskogee” made Merle Haggard a household name. It is a small, plain detail, and that is exactly why it hits so hard. Merle also works his own band, the Strangers, into the lyrics.
By naming the song “Leonard” instead of “Tommy,” Merle pointed past the stage name to the man himself.
Who Tommy Collins had been
To understand why the song mattered, you have to know how far Tommy Collins had fallen. Born in Bethany, Oklahoma, in 1930, he became one of the pioneers of the Bakersfield sound in the early 1950s. In his band, the lead guitarist was a young Buck Owens. Tommy scored his own hits with clever, upbeat songs like “You Better Not Do That,” and he wrote “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’),” later a hit for Faron Young and, much later, a No. 1 for George Strait. Over his life he wrote more than 800 songs.
His personal life was never simple. In the late 1950s he left show business, entered a seminary and became an ordained minister. He came back to country music in the 1960s and had a comeback hit in 1966. Then, by the early 1970s, it all went wrong. He became dependent on drugs and alcohol. His wife Wanda, who was also his duet partner, divorced him. He sank into a deep depression.
Merle kept the door open
Through those years, Merle Haggard did something simple and powerful. He kept recording Tommy Collins songs. Dozens of them. Two became No. 1 hits for Merle: “Carolyn” in 1972 and “The Roots of My Raising” in 1976. For a songwriter who was struggling, those records meant his work was still being heard, and still being paid for.
In 1976, Tommy moved to Nashville and started over. He turned almost entirely to songwriting.
What “Leonard” did for Tommy Collins
When “Leonard” became a hit in 1981, people began paying attention to Tommy Collins again. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame credits the song with sparking that renewed interest. And this time, Tommy was sober.
The doors kept opening. He signed with Sawgrass, Mel Tillis’ publishing company, and Tillis took Tommy’s song “New Patches” into the country top 10 in 1984. In 1993, Ricky Skaggs Music signed him as a songwriter. In 1999, Tommy Collins was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He lived to see it.
He died on March 14, 2000, at home in Ashland City, Tennessee, at age 69. Merle Haggard’s words that day were short.
“It’s a peaceful day for Tommy. He’d been suffering for a long time.”
Plenty of stars record a friend’s song once. Merle Haggard kept recording Tommy Collins for years, and then wrote a hit with his real name on it. Do you remember the first time you heard “Leonard” and wondered who he was?