b 24 February 1958, Kaplan, Louisiana, USA. This singer-songwriter is related to Doug Kershaw, which goes some way to explaining the strong Cajun feel to his work. Kershaw started playing country clubs when he was 12 years old, working with local musician J.B. Perry. During his eight years with Perry, they opened for George Jones and Ray Charles (years later he would duet with Jones on ‘Never Bit A Bullet Like This’). He joined a local band, Blackwater, but after a few years, decided to leave the industry and help design shops for the Wal-Mart Corporation. Some of his early tracks were released in the USA in 1993 on a MTE album, Sammy Kershaw, which was designed to look like his current product. He was encouraged back into music by a contract with Mercury Records in 1990. Kershaw had his first country hit with ‘Cadillac Style’ and ended up as spokesman for their 1992 sales campaign. He courted controversy when he recorded ‘National Working Women’s Holiday’ but he is well able to deal with hecklers, having once been a stand-up comic. He topped the US country charts with ‘She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful’ in 1993. Following a greatest hits compilation, Kershaw released the disappointing Politics, Religion And Her, but bounced back in 1997 with Labor Of Love and an excellent duet album with Lorrie Morgan, who became his wife in 2001. He has been married three times and says, ‘I’m a ballad-singing fool and I’ve lived all those songs at one time or another.’ In 2007 he announced that he would be running for Governer of Louisiana as the Republican candidate.
