**Musician Sammy Shepard performs at Cork It Braselton in Georgia. Photos submitted**

By Tom Victoria

Sammy Shepard isn’t waiting on the day or longing for yesterday. The musician is seizing opportunities now.

The 20-year-old American performs several days a week and records his own music.

“When I do my original songs, I would say the music is more singer/songwriter — John Mayer/Jack Johnson kind of vibe,” Sammy said, referring to the contemporary artists.

The multi-talented performer from Georgia also plays bass, guitar, electric guitar, drums and piano. Sammy records in his basement studio.

“I produce it as well and send it out for mastering,” he said.

His first single “All I Need” was a hit.

“It had about 20,000 streams,” Sammy said about the faster-paced folksy song.

He described his second single “Don’t Say Goodbye” as a slower song with a haunting melody. The third single titled “New Day Blues” debuts at the end of September. The album “Basement Colors” with all eight songs comes out November 17.

**Sammy plays at an event benefitting the Boys & Girls Clubs.**

Sammy doesn’t plan for when he’s going to create new music.

“I never once sat down and said I’m going to write a song,” he said. “They just come and I just wait for the next one. It’s never the same. I can’t put it out until I have the instruments with me, but I hear it.”

Sammy savors the process to make music.

“My favorite thing to do in the industry right now is the active recording, making songs from scratch in the studio as long as it takes,” he said. “It’s just me and making it perfect.”

Sammy stays busy, performing live four days a week while attending college full-time. His audience determines what music he plays, which includes covers.

“It depends on the crowd really,” Sammy said. “So when I’m doing my little gigs — bars, restaurants and things like that, where I mostly do covers, I watch people’s reactions. I see what gets the most claps. I look around for age ranges. I do a lot of old stuff. I do more old stuff than new stuff for sure.”

He’ll listen to the dialogue of patrons for revelatory information such as birthday celebrations, then play songs from the decade that person is likely to favor.

Sammy relies on his comprehensive knowledge of artists and songs when soliciting requests from the crowd.

“I can learn it on the spot and play it for them,” he said.

Sammy puts his own spin on the music.

“I get a lot of praise doing things my own way,” he said. “I really enjoy performing when people are listening and giving feedback.”

Some audiences are a little harder to reach.

“It so happens that a lot of gigs I play, people are going there to drink, socialize and not exactly listen to music,” Sammy said.

In such cases, he said the goal is to try to capture their attention right off the bat.

Sammy enjoys covering John Mayer’s music.

“John Mayer is an incredible lyricist,” Sammy said.

He has some other favorites.

“I do a lot of Beatles and Jack Johnson,” Sammy said. “And then a lot of just random stuff.”

His favorite song to cover at the moment is Sublime’s “Badfish.”

Sammy finds inspiration from a wide gamut of artists, including Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Billy Joel among older acts.

“I love Steely Dan,” he said. “I also love jazz, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Victor Wooten, fusion bands (combining two styles of music). That’s where my musicality comes from.”

Sammy’s specialty is finding ways to incorporate guitar into songs that did not originally use the instrument.

“That makes my style what it is,” he said.

Sammy takes steps, including the device that turns liquid medicine into a mist to be inhaled, to keep his voice throughout his busy weeks.

“I use a nebulizer often with saline,” he said. “Luckily, I’m pretty young right now, so I’m kind of getting ahead of it more than most would at my age.”

Sammy also practices breathing techniques.

“A lot of hot tea where I breathe in the steam,” he said. “A lot of steam showers, stuff like that to keep my lungs clear in a way.”

Sammy has been a musician since second grade.

“My dad is a very good drummer,” he said. “My brother also is a good drummer. So because of that, they needed a bass player. So they had to put it into my hands. I started playing bass at 4, I started playing drums at 6, piano around 6 and acoustic strumming some chords when I was 10 or 11 maybe.”

The instrument Sammy is now renowned for came much later.

“I really dove into guitar when Covid hit,” he said.

By the time Sammy made it to college, music wasn’t his focus. He initially attended Georgia Southern University for a political science degree.

“I’ve always been very good at school and had a 4.1 when I graduated,” Sammy said. “I gave up music but kept it as a hobby. I was destined to do big academic things because it was easy for me.”

However, upon attending college, he found most of his free time was spent playing music.

“That’s when I knew I had to come home and write this album, so that’s what I did,” Sammy said.

**Sammy surfs with a guitar, combining two passions for a school yearbook photo.**

He is now attending the University of Georgia for marketing.

“I don’t want to not get a degree because I think it’s important to get a degree,” Sammy said. “Last thing I wanted was to go to my local college, but here I am.”

Before the switch, he believed not pursuing music was the best option.

“My whole life getting prepared for college, I was under the impression that I can’t let my intellect go to waste,” Sammy said. “I had to do something that involved my brain or else it was just a waste. But this intellect is going to follow me anywhere. It’s up to me to learn how to use it in my field. I read books about the industry. I do everything I can to ensure I’m on the right path to get where I need to go.”

He initially thought singing wouldn’t be in the cards.

“I sang kind of just for fun because it accompanied the instruments,” Sammy said.

However, starting to do gigs led him to work with a vocal coach, which led to discovering untapped singing ability.

“There a was a lot more there than I thought there was,” Sammy said. “It’s been a process uncovering it all.”

**Sammy, who loves playing basketball, shoots a jump shot.**

He soon noticed improvement in his singing.

“I have a long way to go before my voice is where I want it to be,” Sammy said. “It’s definitely getting there.”

Others say his voice is already there.

“I’ve had 'American Idol' reach out,” Sammy said.

During a virtual meeting, the show’s staff was shocked to learn Sammy could also play instruments well.

“They said we just like your voice,” he recalled. “I thought wow, that’s awesome.”

Although venue patrons seek out Sammy for his singing, musicians come to hear his guitar playing.

He is cognizant of the work needed to become a successful musician, explaining how others he knows are too complacent.

“They don’t worry about marketing,” Sammy said. “They don’t worry about promotion, album art, everything you need to do. In this day and age, it’s not just about music anymore.”

Although self-promotion via social media is beneficial, he had trouble with it at first.

“I was not very good at it,” Sammy said. “You can see on my Instagram, it got much more creative. It just looks better, aesthetically pleasing. But when I started, it was rough.”

He’s come full circle.

“I always wanted to be a frontman,” Sammy said. “I always wanted to be a singer. I just didn’t think I would be able to. Around the middle school era, that went away. The dream became I wanted to be an international diplomat and travel the world. Somewhere along in college that turned back into you know I can’t get away from music. This is what I have to do and I’ll use that to travel the world.”

But he doesn’t want his lifestyle to become that of a celebrity’s.

“My othe big goal in life is fatherhood and having a family,” Sammy said. “I don’t want to be a superstar.”

He explained having an aversion to be mobbed as he would try to walk down the street while trying to live an ordinary life.

“I would just like a good loyal fan base that really enjoys my music,” Sammy said.

He wants to sell out small amphitheaters, not large arenas, being closer to musical artists such as Cory Wong.

“Many people don’t know him, but many people do,” Sammy said. “He’s not always getting stopped by people but when he is, they have some nice things to say. They have a good conversation. It’s not just I adore you and I can’t believe I’m seeing you.”

When the singer is not feeling up to performing, he recalls what it was like working as a restaurant manager for 10-hour days and more when he did catering.

“I tell myself it’s three hours,” Sammy said. “You’re going to make more than you did on 16-hour days. You’re just playing music. You’d be doing this if you were home. That kind of snaps me back into it.”

He advised budding performers to not let anything deter them from focusing on the music.

“Don’t lose the spark,” Sammy said. “You can’t let it take away the fun.”

He stressed the importance of promotion.

“You’re selling yourself to people, not just your music,” Sammy said. “You got to be showing that. You got to be marketing yourself, getting interviews, podcasts, everything you can to meet people, make connections.”

Sammy stays physically active.

“I play a lot of basketball,” he said. “I work out a lot.”

Sammy also is into surfing and snowboarding.

“I live on a lake,” he said. “Wake surfing. That’s always been a big thing in my family.”

Sammy also listens to other artists’ music and researches topics that interest him.

But now that music is his main focus again, he’s enjoying everything more. And music is the way Sammy can express himself in no other way.

“I just play how I feel.”

Sammy’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sammy_shepardmusic/

Sammy’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sammyshepard2292

Sammy’s website: https://www.sammyshepardmusic.com/