Artists: Biography Sammy Kershaw  

Sammy Kershaw was born Feb. 24, 1958, in Abbeville, La., and raised in Kaplan, La. His father died when Sammy was 11, so Kershaw worked a variety of jobs by day while playing roadhouses at night to support his family. He opened shows for Ray

Price, Merle Haggard and George Jones while barely into his teens. When the pressures of growing up fast took their toll in the form of a serious drug and alcohol problem, he quit his bad habits cold turkey in 1988 and took a break from music to work as a remodeling supervisor at Wal-Mart.

One of Kershaw's demo tapes made its way to Mercury Records, which released his debut album in 1991. His traditional country voice found a receptive audience in the early 1990s, with hits like "Cadillac Style," "She Don't Know She's Beautiful" and the remake of "Third Rate Romance." Toward the end of the decade, he struggled for a spot on the charts, although his 1999 duet with Lorrie Morgan "Maybe Not Tonight" cracked the Top 20. Shortly thereafter, Kershaw and Morgan divorced their spouses and married in 2001. They separated two years later, but quickly reconciled. He released the album I Want My Money Back on Audium Records in 2003.