[1] He produced a steady stream of country music hits over a 30-year span from artists including Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell, Sylvia, Tom T. Hall, Jim Ed Brown, James Galway, Marie Osmond, and Steve Wariner.

[3][4] In 1982 alone, Collins produced four number one country hits: "Nobody" (Sylvia); "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World" and "Any Day Now" (Ronnie Milsap); and "'Till You're Gone" (Barbara Mandrell).

[5] His publishing Company, Tom Collins Music, received BMI's Robert J. Burton Award in 1983 for "Most Performed Song of the Year", "Nobody", by Sylvia.

[7] Though Collins received a Bachelor of Science degree,[2] he was drawn to pursue a career in the business side of music.

[1] Johnson was a Nashville talent manager who, in 1964, discovered and signed singer Charley Pride, then an ex-baseball player.

While attending a rock music club called the "Whisky a Go Go" in 1972, Charley Pride heard a performance by Ronnie Milsap, a R&B-minded singer who impressed him.

Pride spoke to Milsap, suggesting that a change of genre might help his career, and that he would make a good country singer.

Some of the top songwriters at Pi-Gem went with Collins in his new endeavor, notably Grammy-nominated writers Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan.

Fleming and Morgan decided to let the geographical spot be an image that would stimulate the imagination of the listener, without a lot of detail, reminiscent of Jimmy Webb's song "Wichita Lineman".

[17][19] This was only one of Milsap's 40 number one hits produced by Tom Collins, which also include: "What a Difference You've Made in My Life", "Daydreams About Night Things", "Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night)", "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World", "She Keeps the Home Fires Burning", "It Was Almost Like a Song", "Stranger in My House", "Pure Love", and "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me".

[24] Collins also said that country music tends run in cycles between more traditional sound and more pop and that "you need to stay just a half-step ahead of the trend".

[24] Mandrell's first number one hit was "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed", written by Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan and produced by Collins in 1978.

Prior to moving to Nashville from Kokomo, Indiana, she aspired to be a singer and practiced singing into a deodorant bottle "microphone" in front of a mirror.

Her second album, Just Sylvia, featured the song "Nobody" which rose to number one on the country charts and was a crossover hit which reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100.