James Collins is a Canadian songwriter, actor and singer.
As a songwriter, James has co-written, with Vancouver-based songwriter Dave Pickell over 20 Top 40 hits in Canada.
As a singer, James has had three Top 40 hits - "Do You Mind If We Talk About Bill", which peaked at number 31 on the Canadian national BDS Hot Adult Contemporary chart and "Missing You At Christmas (That's All)", peaking at number 17 on the Canadian national BDS AC chart. Two years earlier, the original version of "Missing You At Christmas (That's All)" peaked Top 30, nationally. James' vulnerable, heart felt ballad, "Good Enough (To Love)" also peaked at number two on Quebec's provincial A'disq Le Palmares Top 25 Pop Adult chart. "Good Enough (To Love)" sat at the number two position for four weeks, behind the hit "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.
In 2003, he and Pickell co-wrote American Idol contestant, Vanessa Olivarez's, first single "The One" which reached number ten on the Nielsen SoundScan Canadian Singles Sales chart.[1] Soon after, James would have even more success with American Idol Season 3 Finalist, Jon Peter Lewis. Jon and James co-wrote a Canadian Christmas hit entitled "It's Christmas." The song peaked at # 13 on the national Pop Adult chart (BDS) and was featured on the Canadian gold selling "Now Christmas 2." "It's Christmas" was also recently featured on a Christmas compilation released in Germany.
In 2006, Sony-BMG picked up James' Christmas song, Missing You At Christmas (That's All) as well as the Christmas song he wrote with Melissa Manchester (sung by Melissa Manchester), My Christmas Song For You and placed both tracks on their Platinum Christmas 3 compilation (featuring: Carly Simon, Bruce Springstein, Harry Connick Jr., Tony Bennett, Cyndi Lauper...etc).
James scored a # 1 Socan award (with Dave Pickell) for their tongue-in-cheek true story song, "Cyndi Lauper Said No." The song reached # 1 on Quebec's Top 25 Pop/Rock chart for 5 weeks in 2009. It's the first time an indie reached #1 on this chart.
As an actor, James can be seen playing principal roles in TV series, such as, Falling Skies," "Flashpoint," "Rookie Blue," Doc, Queer as Folk and the hit Canadian TV series This Is Wonderland.
James can also be seen playing, Ralph, the town bully in the Canadian feature film Lakefront and soon, he appears in the supporting role of Gary, the hotel manager, in the upcoming zombie flick, Queen Of The Zombie Punks. James played the farmer father character in Nickelback's worldwide number one rock video Too Bad.