Curt Collins Interview - ChristianMusic.com

The death of Curt Collins’s adoptive mother from a long battle with cancer a few years ago was hard enough. Then, when his father died fifteen months later – from a broken heart, as Curt puts it – Curt was left at a crossroads.

Growing up in Arkansas, he had been encouraged by his parents in music, but as an adult had landed in the financial services industry. “It was a tough time,” he tells ChristianMusic, then adds as a sidebar, “a couple of songs came out of that.”

“My parents always encouraged my music,” Curt relates. “They just believed in me so much.” So, he took a leap of faith, as he puts it, decided to pursue Christian music full-time, and moved his family to Tennessee.

“I just believe that God has a purpose and a plan for me,” he explains. Indeed, to talk with CM, Curt interrupted his preparations for performing in Pennsylvania at “Maximum Impact ’09.” “Evangelists from all over the world will be there,” Curt says. “The music helps bring in the spirit, so you can be in a place to hear the message. It sort of sets up the speakers.”

Curt also performs in churches around the country, often bringing in a saxophone along with his piano and guitar. “You can sense the congregation looking at the sax and thinking, ‘he isn’t going to play that, is he?’ So, I like to bring in a song that people know. It helps the audience relate.”

Talking to Curt, one is struck by the fact that music is just one of the ways he ministers. When he lived in Arkansas, Curt ministered in prisons. “I’ve always had this heart to help people,” he says. “You never know, all of a sudden God touches them and it changes their lives. That’s what I want.”

His adoption into a loving family at the age of six months has sparked in Curt a desire to help families who adopt special-needs children. “There was a revival in St. Louis. They flew me there to perform. The minister there had two sons. Even though one of them was a special-needs child, with Downs Syndrome, they adopted them both because they were brothers,” he explains. “At the time, they had no money and no support. I had an idea.”

That idea was a foundation, called Love Unconditional, (luchildren.com) which Curt established and named after one of his songs. “I did a Christmas tour with Diamond Rio, and told them about my idea. They connected me to a group called Arrow Ministries,” he says, and it’s taken off from there. Though still in the early stages, Curt has signed on celebrities as well as planned benefit concerts for the charity.

The name, Love Unconditional, is from a song from his first self-titled album. Ironically, one of the more popular songs on Another Day, his most recent album, produced by Jamie Slocum, is “Hiding Place.” It was inspired by some of the trials, Curt says, of dealing with his own two sons. “That, and just life in general,” he adds. “I had the melody for a long time, and just loved it.” Then, between being a father, and appealing to the Father -- “Lord, what are you trying to tell me?” – the words came.

With the popularity and importance of Curt Collins’s music, and his desire to reach out beyond the music, when he talks about taking “a leap of faith,” the meaning of the phrase resonates long after the song is over.

-- Nate Lee