Sammy Kershaw

Sammy Kershaw is a country singer whose path runs from the Acadiana roadhouses of south Louisiana to the top of the Billboard country chart. Born Samuel Paul Cashat in the town of Kaplan, he learned his craft in honky-tonks and beer joints while still a teenager, and his work often draws comparisons to George Jones, the idol he first met at fourteen. That lineage shows in his rough, straightforward voice and his fondness for barroom songs about wounded pride and small-town life, which keep him rooted in the traditional sound even as his records were built for radio.

His 1991 debut, Don't Go Near the Water, for Mercury Records, went platinum and yielded four hit singles, led by "Cadillac Style". Its follow-up, Haunted Heart, gave him his only Number One, "She Don't Know She's Beautiful", and was also certified platinum. Later releases brought "National Working Woman's Holiday" and "Third Rate Romance", both reaching No. 2, and a 1996 album, Politics, Religion and Her, which yielded "Meant to Be" and "Vidalia". His 1997 album Labor of Love produced "Love of My Life", a No. 2 and his final US Top 10 hit. He also ran for lieutenant governor of Louisiana as a Republican in 2007 and 2010.