Sammy Sadler On His Country Music Comeback Following The ‘Murder On Music Row’

Sammy Sadler, a country singer with a rich, traditional sounding voice and a reverence for 80s and 90s music, is excited about his just-released single “I Can’t Get Close Enough.”

“It’s an Exile song that was a big hit for them a long time ago,” Sadler explains, “and Sonny and J.P. and Les, have been gracious enough to come in and sing with me on it.”

It follows another single Sadler released earlier this year called “If I Had A Cheating Heart.” That, too, will be familiar to older country music fans. It was a hit for Mel Street in 1978 and later recorded by Don Williams, as well.

Sadler has a close connection to music from the era of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Born in Memphis, his family moved to Texas when he was just a toddler. There, he developed a deep love for country music and by high school had formed his own band and performed at home and in surrounding states. Then, the year he graduated, he moved to Nashville and ended up getting a record deal at just 18 years old.

“I ended up getting a record deal with Evergreen Records and even though it was an independent deal, that was kind of unheard of in those days for an 18-year-old,” he says. “And from 1985 to 1989, I had six nationally charted records.”

But in 1989, he was caught in the middle of a shockingly violent crime that would derail his career for decades.

Deadly Shooting on Music Row

“I was on my sixth charting record with was the old Aaron Neville song “Tell It Like It Is,” and it took off for me,” Sadler recounts. “It was going up the charts and my label started getting me ready to cut my album. But on March 9, 1989, tragedy struck.”

Sadler was at the center of a deadly shooting as he and friend, Kevin Hughes, chart manager for now defunct Cash Box magazine, walked to Hughes car on Nashville’s iconic 16^th Avenue.

“Kevin was shot and murdered,” says Sadler. “I was left for dead, and it ended up going around the world as the ‘Murder on Music Row.”

Sadler tells the story in his book A Hit with a Bullet.

He’d called Hughes who said he was working on the music charts in his Cashbox office. Sadler told him if he was going to be there for a while, he’d stop by. Sadler did that, then later the two went out to get something to eat. On the way back, they stopped at Sadler’s record label office where Sadler called his parents and Kevin even hopped on the line to say hello. At one point, they thought they heard a rattle at the front door. Kevin looked out and saw a guy walking down the street, but there appeared to be no cause for alarm.

Later, the two men left and headed out to Kevin’s car.

“We walked out onto the front porch, looked around, didn’t see anything, so we started across 16^th Avenue,” Sadler says. “As I walked around to open the door on Kevin’s car, I caught something moving out the corner of my eye. I looked up and the guy was right there on top of me with a gun right in my face. I threw my arms up to cover my head and that’s when he fired the shot. It hit me in my right arm, then Kevin did a barrel roll and started running back up 16^th Avenue and the guy went after him. He shot Kevin twice in the back of the head, then ran off.”

At first, Sadler had no idea as to the extent of his injuries.

“That night I didn’t know how bad I was hurt, but it severed the main artery in my right arm, so doctors had to take an artery out of my leg and graft into my arm. And if that hadn’t worked, they’d obviously had to cut my arm off.”

Murder Took More Than A Decade To Solve

For the next 13-and-a-half years, despite suffering his own injuries, Sadler lived under a cloud of suspicion with regard to the shooting.

“Even as I was fighting for my own life, the police ended up treating me like a suspect. I took a lie detector test, they took me to Vanderbilt and had me hypnotized. And even after that, the two detectives who were there asked the professor, ‘Was he really hypnotized?’ He said, ‘He absolutely was,’ but I don’t think they believed.”

Sadler says without knowing why the shooting occurred, he spent years looking over his shoulder thinking someone might still be trying to kill him. In the early 2000s, authorities arrested Richard D’Antonio for Hughes’ murder. D’Antonio was convicted in 2003.

“Eventually, I found out what it was all about,” Sadler says. “It was about four or five record promoters trying to pay Kevin off underneath the table to move records up the charts. Kevin was an honest guy and wouldn’t take their money, so, they shot and killed him over it.”

Though relieved to finally know why it all happened, Sadler says the years in-between were painfully difficult for his family and would end up derailing his country music career for decades. He says he finally wrote the book to tell his side of the story.

Sadler’s Side of the Story

“Everybody asks why’d you write the book so many years later? Well, with all of the speculation and the way police treated me and tried to implicate me in something I had nothing to do with, I just wanted to tell the story through my eyes.

The book details many aspect of the crime and Sadler’s life, as well as an endearing story of how Former Vice President Al Gore, who was serving as a Tennessee U.S. Senator when Sadler was shot, stepped in to get one of the top neurosurgeon’s in the country to operate on Sadler’s hand.

With the book behind him, his story finally on the record, Sadler continues pursuing what he loves – making music.

“The Murder on Music Row is always going to be associated with me. I can’t get away from it, but I survived it, I came through it, and I’m just thankful to still be here. But there’s more to Sammy Sadler than just surviving the shooting and that’s my music, my voice, and my talent.”

Sadler Releases New Music

His music veers toward the decades of years past when he believes country music was at its peak.

“The music in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, was some of the best country music that ever was. Those stories were about real life, real situations, about love and heartache and pain.”

He’s looking forward to people hearing his latest single featuring the three members of Exile and plans to release a new album early next year with more surprise guests. Sadler’s also working on a full tour for next year.

“As far as the new single, I want to thank J.P. and Les and Sonny for lending their voices and talent. And I want to thank Cody McCarver and Studio Dunlap for the video,” Sadler says. “They did a great job and I’m just so proud of it.”