Dugg Collins

Dugg Collins was born in the farming community of Memphis, "Hall County" Texas, an area of the state known as "Bob Wills Country". Dugg grew up hearing stories about this great bandleader. Collins said, "Just about everybody I talked to back then used to pick cotton with Ol' Bob. That had to be one hell of a large cotton patch, just to hold all those people."

His musical ability was passed down from his mother Dolly Mae. She could play anything, guitar, piano, accordion, lap steel and organ. His musical training was cut short in 1956 at age twelve, when Dolly Mae died from cancer. The desire to make music stayed with him and by age fourteen, he learned how to play guitar. He was working dances by age fifteen, primarily as a singer. By his own admission, he isn't a very good guitar player.

Dugg has stated he always knew what he wanted to do in life by age seven. He knew that one day he wanted to be on the radio and talk just like Paul Kallinger did on XERF in Del Rio and he wanted to one day make records and perform with a band. Of course, at that age, he didn't know how he would accomplish that, but later on, he managed to figure it all out.

He earned his first money for singing at age fifteen and by age sixteen, he got his start in radio at KCTX in Childress, Texas with the help of Malone Hagen and George Morey, two men who owned the radio station. Sometimes he could catch a ride with someone going to Childress but most of the time he had to hitch-hike to and from Memphis to learn the business.

After several years of radio jobs up and down Highway 287 and after marriage in 1963, he and the family moved to Amarillo, Texas in 1968 to work for the John Walton stations, KDJW/KBUY. By doing song demos for a local writer, he got his first recording contract in 1969 with Little Darlin' Records in Nashville, which was the home label of Johnny Paycheck. In 1970, Johnny Paycheck became his record producer for a short period of time. In the mid '70s, Collins had a recording contract with a Dallas label called SCR and placed two singles in the national charts.

He has worked with every major act in country music during the course of his career and has won some awards in the process. From the late sixties to 1999, he booked concerts, club dates, worked with a band and took care of his radio duties out of Amarillo while he and his wife Joyce raised four children.

Some of his honors include:

• 1979 CMA's DISC JOCKEY OF THE YEAR -- NASHVILLE
  
  
• 1996 THE TEXAS PANHANDLE BROADCASTER'S HALL OF FAME -- AMARILLO
  
  
• 1996 THE COUNTRY MUSIC DISC JOCKEY HALL OF FAME -- NASHVILLE
  
  
• 1999 THE TEXAS COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME DISC JOCKEY AWARD -- CARTHAGE
  
  
• 2001 AMERICA'S OLD TIME COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME -- AVOCA, IOWA

Dugg now makes his home in Wichita, Kansas. He has been with KFDI since February, 1999 but he's still a Texan to the bone and always will be.

He also has a new CD on the market, released June 7th on the Startex label out of Austin, Texas, which has met with great acclaim in America as well as overseas. Dugg Collins, Sounds Like Texas, is a collection of Texas Honky Tonk and Western Swing music.

Dugg has met and become friends with all his musical heroes and is very proud to be a member of the CMDJ Hall of Fame in Nashville, sharing space with all his radio heroes. Dugg says, "I have been the luckiest man in the world to be involved in a business that I dearly love."