Singer and musician Stephanie Sammons. Courtesy photo.
Singer and musician Stephanie Sammons didn’t just re-route her life and career to music. She said it was also calling out to her, beckoning her to pour her frustrations, feelings and faith into songs.
“It’s kind of hard to explain but it’s a calling,” Sammons said. “It nags at you. I felt it was therapeutic, and I just love music so much. I just started trying my hand at it.”
Sammons may have started her music career later in life, but she’s more than made up for the time with two EPs including her self-titled debut in 2010 and her most recent work Time and Evolution produced by singer Mary Bragg. She also opened tonight for Jennifer Knapp at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas and performed as one of 24 New Folk finalists in the most recent Kerrville Folk Festival. Now, in her 50s, she’s planning a new tour for 2025.
Music has always been a part of Sammons’ life. But she started learning how to write, perform and record her own songs when life threw her a curveball.
“My first real attempt was after I lost my position in corporate America,” Sammons said. “I was in an upper-level management role with Merrill Lynch, and I was 40 and that’s all I had known. That was my career for 16 years and I started writing songs about my frustration, my sadness about losing that position and my uncertainty about the future.
Her first batch of songs led to her first EP in 2010. She said she still had a lot to learn about crafting a song from scratch.
“It’s evolved over the years,” Sammons said. “About seven years ago, I started going to workshops in Nashville that were led by Grammy-nominated songwriters (Mary Gauthier and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls). I got into this group because my spouse gave it to me for Christmas one year, and that’s where I really honed my craft.
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Sammons said the lessons she learned from that workshop in Nashville helped her really express herself through her songs. She learned how to write lyrics that were more concise and “more specific,” which helped her songs be “more universal.”
“I learned to go deep,” said Sammons, who in addition to her music career is a Certified Financial Planner and the owner of Dallas-based Sammons Wealth Management. “I learned that every word counts. I learned it’s the most condensed artform there is other than poetry and I just loved the challenge of everything involved in putting together a great song, which is the lyrics.”
The difference between her first EP and Time and Evolution is “night and day” to her.
“There’s a lot of imagery in those songs,” she said. “Most of those songs, I had written after experiencing all of those workshops.”
“Faithless” and “Billboard Sign” are standouts from her latest album, both of which were released as a single and a live performance track from her show in Nashville. Sammons said both are “deeply personal songs.”
“There are some universal themes in both of those songs,” Sammons said. “It is an inherent struggle with my religious upbringing and my authentic self and ‘Billboard Sign’ is an attempt at being both loving and appropriate in my coming-out experience with a religious family and the years of struggle around that.”
Both songs also helped secure Sammons a spot as a finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival, one of 24 out of around 1,400 songwriters who submitted their works. Sammons said the festival “kind of put me on the map.
“I did not expect that,” she said.
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Sammons said she’s looking forward to learning where her music and talent will take her next.
“It gives me a chance to connect with new people and that’s the whole point,” Sammons said. “It’s inspiring connecting with people.”