Sammy Sadler

Country singer Sammy Sadler entered the world on August 23, 1967, in Memphis, TN, before growing up in Bonham, TX. After inking a deal with Evergreen Records, he first appeared on the country charts in January 1989 via his rendition of Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is.” Follow-up single “You Made It Easy” also registered on the tally, yet before his third entry—“Once in a Lifetime Thing,” which surfaced in January 1990—Sadler sustained injuries during a startling Nashville episode: a masked assailant confronted him and his companion, Cash Box magazine chart director Kevin Hughes, then opened fire on both men, fatally striking Hughes. Subsequent disclosures revealed that Hughes had been the intended victim in a chart-fixing plot, leaving Sadler an uninvolved bystander. Even so, more than ten years elapsed before he could resume rebuilding his professional path. On March 9, 2004, the Tri label issued his album Hard on a Heart. He later moved to E1 Music (previously KOCH), which brought out Heart Shaped Like Texas on September 29, 2009.