Phil Collins shares fixation on The Alamo at Fair Park on Monday

by Teresa Gubbins

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He disses Sting!

DALLAS — Rock singer-songwriter Phil Collins is no stranger to Dallas, having performed here solo and with his band Genesis. But he retired from touring in 2004, and his appearance at the Hall of State in Fair Park on Monday had nothing to do with music. Instead he was there at the behest of Dallas Historical Society life trustee Lindalyn Adams to talk about his interest in The Alamo.

For about an hour, he explained in a, how-do-you-say, mellow conversation co-moderated by Adams and local squire Angus Wynne (chosen, obviously, because he's the only Dallasite whose skull is balder and shinier than Collins') why a musician from England who now lives in Switzerland would be enchanted with a tourist spot in San Antonio. If you read any of the previews in the local press (the DMN alone did a preposterous three separate pieces), you would've known the spiel: He was entranced by Davy Crockett as a child; owns one of the biggest collections of Alamo memorabilia in the world; met Adams in 1982 in the Virgin Islands. She thought Genesis was a religious group (insert audience chuckle).

The actual information conveyed seemed less significant than the fact that he was willing to come to Dallas and recite it. His tales of collecting saddles and cannonballs were heightened by his low-key charm. The rapt audience of about 300 people seemed eager to laugh at any comment that even resembled a joke.

His Alamo adventures included his purchase of a property in San Antonio where he funded a dig in search of artifacts. Nothing turned up. Most of his collection is in the basement of his Switzerland home. "It's all very well insured, although how do you insure something like that?" he asked rhetorically. "But I never sell. I give these things a home."

During the last quarter hour, Adams and Wynne asked questions about his musical career. "We're all fans," Adams said fawningly (earlier, she asked him how many members were in his "group", referring to Genesis), before steering the discussion to his soundtrack for the Disney film Tarzan.

"Elton John had just made a big soundtrack for Lion King, and so they asked me to do Tarzan," Collins explained. "Sting had a lot of trouble. He's not very good in a team. I can say that. He'd say it. He said they asked him, and I said, 'They ask you to change things.' He said, 'Change things??' (Audience chuckle.) I said, 'You sit around a table with 10 other people and they've all got a better idea than you do.'"

People also seemed interested in his small talk about his family including three ex-wives, all of whom he gets along with (audience chuckle), and five children, including daughter Lily an actress who recently appeared in The Blind Side. The audience applauded this, for who is not impressed with an actor getting a role in a major film? Since the birth of his two younger sons, Nicholas and Matthew, Collins has embraced doing the "normal" things us non-rock-stars do, like taking them to school every day.

But on the urging of his manager, Collins has a new album of '60s covers coming out in September. When it comes out, he said he'll do six shows in Philadelphia and New York that will be recorded for a DVD.

He ended with the admission that he'd never done anything like this. "So I apologize if you're disappointed," he said.

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