Exploring Nashville's Music Scene: TG Sheppard’s Journey Through Five Decades of Country Music History

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Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashville.

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Speaker 2: Hey, y'all, it's Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a Walk Nashville. I hope everyone is having a great summer. Give us a follow on Instagram at Taking a Walk Nashville. You can find us there. And you know, we talked to Kelly Lange and now today we're going to talk to her husband, TG Shepherd. I also got to sit down with him. Did you know that he left home at the age of fifteen in West Tennessee to pursue a career in Memphis. He initially recorded pop music and toured as an opening act for groups like The Beach Boys, and then eventually he had a close friendship with Elvis Presley. He adopted the stage name TG Shepherd around nineteen seventy four, and his very first single, Devil in the Bottle, It went straight to number one in nineteen teen seventy five. Wow.

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Speaker 3: TG.

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Speaker 2: Shepherd has been in Nashville for a long time, and today he is going to take us through Nashville music history.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson.

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Speaker 4: Hi, listeners, this is Sarah Harrelson, your host of the Ticket Walk Nashville Podcast, and today we are taking a walk with a true legend of country music, a man who has spent five decades at the top of the charts, and this year we are celebrating a massive triple milestone in his career, the fiftieth anniversary of landmark albums Motels and Memories and Solitary Man, as well as the forty fifth anniversary of the iconic crossover smash I Loved Him Everyone, TG.

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Speaker 5: Thank you so much for being podcast today.

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Speaker 3: That's wow. What intro? Where do I send a check? Well, it's been Sarah.

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Speaker 6: It's been a heck of a ride, I mean. And to still be here like today, gusting with you all these years later. I never would have dreamed in my life that fifty years later I'd still be here doing this and still on tour every week.

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Speaker 3: It's incredible.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, you continue to tour release music.

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Speaker 5: As I mentioned, this year's the forty fifth anniversary of your hit I Loved Them Everyone.

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Speaker 7: What was it about that specific song that you think allowed it to cross the gap and bridge country fans and pop audiences together.

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Speaker 6: Musically or melodically. When you heard that song, it was in a minor key when it started.

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Speaker 3: That caught your ear.

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Speaker 6: Because it was a little different than other songs you would hear, and it was just.

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Speaker 3: With me.

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Speaker 6: When I get ready to record songs, I always try to pick songs that hooked me melodically, and then I take the time to listen to the words to make sure they connect. But that melody has got to be there, that melody that you catch yourself whistling or humming through the day after hearing a song a few times, you know. Funny thing about loved them everyone. I remember the day that we left the studio. I remember saying to myself, I believe we hooked magic today.

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Speaker 3: It was just something that I felt, and I just in my gut, I.

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Speaker 6: Knew that we had cut something that was going to alter my life, and it did.

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Speaker 3: That was my first big, big crossoverly Yeah, so it was one of the little songs you know, we were very fortunate to have.

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Speaker 5: I definitely love that song. And nineteen seventy five, that was a monumental year for you, with motels and memories and solitary. Man, when you looked back at that one doow of time, what was the energy like in Nashville and did you have an inkling that those records would be celebrated you knows a century later?

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Speaker 6: Oh gosh, no, I never thought my career of lasts more than a couple of years.

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Speaker 3: Uh. Well, Neil diamond was a friend, and.

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Speaker 6: That song was always one that I love, Solitary Maid and Motails and Memories. There's a there's a story behind every song, Motils and Memories. I hear a knock on my door one night in Memphis when I was living there, and the guy was standing there and he said, Uh, I'm Don Miller, and he said, I am a high school teacher or high school principle, and I've written a song that I think they would be ahead for you. And normally I wouldn't invite a stranger into my house to hear a song. Yeah, but something told me to invite him, and I invited him in, and I heard Motels and Memories and I said, you've written the number one record.

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Speaker 3: I recorded it, and sure enough it was number one.

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Speaker 6: Of course, Solitary Man was just one of my favorites for years.

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Speaker 3: With Neil Diamonds.

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Speaker 6: I had to do a remake on that, but it's exciting to still be able to celebrate that part of my life and career all these years later.

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Speaker 5: It's such an incredible story. And as you mentioned, you're still very actively touring with new shows being added.

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Speaker 2: At your website.

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Speaker 5: What is it about the live performance aspect that keeps you energized for the road after all these years?

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Speaker 6: You know when you stand on stage after doing it for fifty years and you look out and you see the Crown singing your songs back to you that were number one before they were born.

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Speaker 3: So that is a miracle.

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Speaker 6: Then, I'm sure you see it when somebody assist what is longevity in an artist's career?

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Speaker 3: That is longevity.

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Speaker 6: That's what creates longevity is when you've got people and young people in their teens that are singing your songs that are forty and forty five years old. So that keeps me energizing, keeps me going, and makes me have more fun now than I've ever had in my life. On say, I love perform I hate the traveling, but I love performing.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so special that you still get to tour and you also continue to record and perform some of these shows with your wife Kelly Lang. You have had and you recently released a do at Christmas album last year together, titled Tender Tennessee Christmas. What's your favorite Christmas song to performed together.

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Speaker 6: I kind of like, uh, Christmas would withoutue.

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Speaker 3: A song that she wrote. But I kind of like the standards too.

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Speaker 6: I mean, I've always have yourself am Merry Little Christmas.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I've always loved that one.

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Speaker 6: It's hard to pick one because it's all in the fabric of my life as a.

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Speaker 3: Child, you know, hearing those songs.

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Speaker 6: But we we Tender Tennessee Christmas is probably one of my favorites, which is the title of the You know, funny thing is we shot the video for that first single, Johnny Cash cabin over on his property and it was just a hoot.

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Speaker 3: I can almost feel Johnny Cash in the room. It was weird.

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Speaker 5: But it has to be so special performing and recording music together. As someone who has navigated the industry through vinyl and cassettes and CDs and now streaming, what do you think is the most important thing that hasn't changed about making a great country record?

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Speaker 3: Good questioned me, That's a great question.

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Speaker 6: Everybody's ever asked me that what hasn't changed is the heart. I think that goes into when a performer is singing a song. I think the people out there who are listening and know if your heart's in it, are you just singing it for the buck?

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Speaker 3: Are you just singing it to be singing it?

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Speaker 6: That part to me, has it changed I every song I sing or every word that comes out of my mouth, I truly mean because I'm afforded a great luxury of having a platform to be heard, and the people deserve for me to be honest with them when they hear me, to really believe what I'm singing is real.

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Speaker 3: And so that's one thing that as they changed and they'll never change for me.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, that's great.

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Speaker 5: I definitely agree that authenticity is so important no matter what platform is.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, TG, thank you so much for being on taking a walk in Nashville today. My last question for you if we were to take a walk through one specific era of Nashville seventies, eighties, nineties, or today, which decade would you like to revisit for an afternoon and who would you want to run into on music Row.

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Speaker 3: It'd be the seventies.

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Speaker 6: I'd want to run into the studio and see Wayland sitting behind.

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Speaker 3: The console recording.

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Speaker 6: I'd like to run into another studio and maybe see Christofferson singing and writing one of his monster hits. That was a very magical era that the seventies on Music Row when it.

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Speaker 3: Was Music Row. Of course, Music Row as we.

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Speaker 6: Knew now gone skyscrapers and the condos and office buildings. So I'd say the seventies is probably the time that meant.

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Speaker 3: The most of me and I reminisce the most. Whales.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that and taking us back in time today.

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Speaker 7: We are looking forward to your.

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Speaker 5: Upcoming shows and new music. TG Sheppard, thank you again for being here today.

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Speaker 3: Oh Sar, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson. Please check out our other shows produced by Buzznight Media Productions, Comedy Save Me and Music Save Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman, and Take It a Walk hosted by Yours Truly buzz Night. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part of the iHeart podcast network