Photo: Kevin Sharon | COMBO Editor’s note: True Crime lovers move over! This story is for MUSICIANS who want to learn how to spot a SCAM, a CON, and FRAUD. This is still going on today so read each story carefully. | By Keith Sharon, USA Today Network | This is the seventh in an eight-part series exploring the 1989 murder of Kevin Hughes, a country music chart director who knew too much. | NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sammy Sadler’s right arm wasn’t working well enough to play a guitar. It was the middle of 1989 when he moved back to Texas. He said he was finished with Nashville. His friend was dead. He had been shot. No one was promoting his records. And his recording career had been cut short.
“My career was basically over,” Sadler said. “I believe what the police done to me put a cloud over my career. To me it’s just not fair. It’s not fair to Kevin Hughes. Kevin Hughes died for country music. I took a bullet for it.”
He was under suspicion for participating in Hughes’ death.
He said he was still afraid the person who killed Hughes and shot him would try to come back and finish the job.
And yet …
On June 10, 1989, his song “You Made It Easy” appeared in Cash Box magazine’s Indie Spotlight.
A week later, the song debuted on the chart at No. 87. Over 10 weeks in June, July and August 1989, “You Made It Easy” was on the charts 16 times, rising to No. 2 on the Country Indie Singles chart.
Sadler’s picture appeared in an advertisement with the notation that he was promoted by Chuck Dixon.
In August, Sadler was named as Cash Box magazine’s No. 5 male vocalist.
In October, November and December, Sadler’s song “Once in a Lifetime Thing” was on the chart eight times.
He was nominated for Song of the Year for a cover of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” which he had not recorded.
Sadler’s photo appeared in Cash Box in December 1989 with the following words: “Thanks Country Radio for a Great Year 1989.”
In 1990, Sadler’s song “Mississippi’s Burning Tonight” was on the Country Singles chart (this is the superstar chart with Garth Brooks, Faith Hill and Reba McEntire) for nine weeks.
That song was co-written by Chuck Dixon.
Sadler said he had no idea how any of those songs got on the chart, or why a song he didn’t sing was nominated. He said neither he nor his family paid for the chart positions or the advertisements.
In all, Sadler had 26 chart positions in the 28 months before Kevin Hughes died, and he had 33 chart positions in the 19 months after.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/murder-on-music-row-an-off-key-singer-with-10k-to-burn-helped-solve-a-nashville-murder/
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This is to the Second Part of the Series:
Murder on Music Row: Nashville couple witness man in ski mask take the shot. Who was he?
Story by Keith Sharon, USA TODAY NETWORK
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The little red Volkswagen puttered northbound along 16th Avenue South.
Bobby Lyons was driving his friend Allyson Kidd to the movies. Not a date really, just a couple of friends cutting through Music Row to get to the theaters to see “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/murder-on-music-row-nashville-couple-witness-man-in-ski-mask-take-the-shot-who-was-he/
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Murder on Music Row: Predatory promoters bilk Nashville’s singing newcomers
Story by Keith Sharon, USA TODAY NETWORK
This is the fourth in an eight-part series exploring the 1989 murder of Kevin Hughes, a country music chart director who knew too much.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The music promoter kept a 12-gauge shotgun behind his office door.
If they wanted to try to kill him for talking to the police, then he wasn’t planning on going down without a fight.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/murder-on-music-row-predatory-promoters-bilk-nashville-s-singing-newcomers/
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Murder on Music Row: Phone calls reveal anger, tension on Hughes’ last day alive
This is the sixth in an eight-part series exploring the 1989 murder of Kevin Hughes, a country music chart director who knew too much.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sammy Sadler met a woman.
He was at the Country Radio Seminar during the first week of March in 1989. That was the year an up-and-comer named Garth Brooks set the standard for working the CRS crowd and making everyone love him with a handshake, an autograph or an unforgettable acoustic performance.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/murder-on-music-row-phone-calls-reveal-anger-tension-on-hughes-last-day-alive/
Photo: Keith Sharon (book cover) | From his Facebook page – photo by Diana Pupininkiene https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=151159958234934&set=t.1342641977&type=3