Monroe, Louisiana to Epping, N.H. sounds like quite a journey. Do you have any plans to write your story down and share it with others?

People have talked to me about this over the years, because people that get to know me a little bit get to hear the story. And it’s such a fascinating story. I’m 65 years old, and I left home when I was 13. I’m feeling pretty good to be standing on my own two feet, and doing okay for myself. I’m my own man, run my own business, got my own record label, my own little publishing company, and my own little sum that the good Lord gave me for my writing. I did pretty good, looking back to where I came from. But I don’t take all the credit for it. I have to give the credit to the good Lord, because I didn’t always have a plan. I was just flying by the seat of my pants. [laughs] I can’t take too much credit, except that I think I hung in there the best I could. But God’s been very good to me. It’s been quite a journey.

Tell me a little about how you first became interested in singing and performing.

I started singing with my mama in church. My mother had a gospel group, and I was five years old. That’s the first time I sang in public. I was in church, and I sang this song, “On the Battlefield, Working for My Lord.” That was the first song I sang in public, and the funny thing about it is that I freaked out. Back in those days, I was scared of dead people, and the people in the Baptist church would get to shouting and fainting, and when they fainted, I thought they were dead. So this big lady jumped up, grabbed me, and fainted, and I freaked out because I thought she’d died. [laughs] That was my first introduction to the public. I loved it, because I got the applause when I got done. The first time I started doing it on the serious side, and getting paid, was in elementary school. My physical education teacher put together my first little band, and we started doing little gigs around the neighborhood. And I made a few dollars, and then the girls got into it, and I was really hooked then. [laughs] I was sure enough hooked then…absolutely.

Then on the professional end, when I actually started singing professionally, I started working as a valet for my friend “Little Melvin” – Melvin Underwood, who’s also from Monroe, Louisiana, and he had a big band. My good friend and classmate, Robert Green, who they called “Sonny” Green, sang with Melvin as Melvin’s lead vocalist. I used to skip school to go hang out with those guys, because that was my chance to get on the road and do it with someone professionally. So I started working with Melvin as his valet. Then I started singing backup with Little Melvin, and when Sonny left, I took Sonny’s place. So that’s how it all got started, and I’ve been on my own ever since.

While you were still in the South, what had the biggest effect on you musically and why?

I’ve been singing as long as I can remember. It was just like getting up and walking everyday. I guess what influenced me most was the music I was listening to on the radio. They used to have a radio station out of Nashville, and I used to listen to that. They played everyone from Jimmy Reed to Clyde McFadden to Louis John to B.B. King to Howlin’ Wolf to on and on. I listened to all that stuff. My mother was a very devout Christian woman, and she didn’t like blues singing around the house. But I always sang it, even when we were picking cotton. I used to pick hard to get ahead of mama, or I’d lag behind so I’d get a chance to sing. So I guess I was really influenced by the stuff I was listening to on the radio. I wasn’t going out at that time, but I was listening to the radio.

What brought you to New England?

I’ve always had the guts to follow my dream, and follow my heart. I mean, I left the house when I was 13 years old, and I never looked back. So every time things weren’t going right, I’d sit down and think about it, pray about it, and get some advice from somebody. If it was time for me to leave, I packed up and left. What really secured the trip in coming up here was I started playing up in this area years ago at the Apollo Theater in 1966 when my first recording came out. It did pretty well, so that’s when I played the Apollo Theater, and that’s when I first came up this way.

But when I decided to move up here was in 1992, because I came up before in 1990 and did a tour with some people up here – some of the great musicians in the Boston area, like Bruce Cass, Kevin Berry, and people like that. They told me if I wanted to come back up here and put a band together, they’d love to play with me. They knew I was going through some problems with a lady I was married to in Houston at that time. I’ve been married a few times in my life, and sometimes I tell people it’s too many to count. I’ve lost count. I just keep doing it until I get it right. [laughs]

Anyway, I was going through the fuss with this lady. She was a high-powered lawyer, so I had nothing to defend myself with. Everything was in her control, so I left, and came up here in the last part of 1992. I moved to Boston, and I met Joe Harley through my drummer I was using at the time out of Hartford, Ct. He said, “Send Joe a tape,” so we put something together and sent it to Joe. Joe liked it, and that’s how I really got back started recording, because that’s the first time I’d done a record since Hubert Sumlin and Roomful of Blues, and that wasn’t my recording – I was a guest artist. That’s the first time I’d ever recorded on my own.

So I met these guys, came back up and put a band together, and started writing songs. We recorded Give it Up to Love, and that’s what gave me a little boost on my little comeback. Back in the 1970s, I wasn’t doing much. I moved to Nashville back then – disco came in and I thought music was going to hell. It was so crazy, I couldn’t find a gig. No one was hiring bands – they just wanted someone to come in and play records. So I went through that period where I moved to Nashville, which was ’75, and I stayed there until ’82. I moved to New Orleans after that, but Nashville was a really dry period. God took me to Nashville to learn some very valuable lessons, and that was when I really started writing. I must have written about 200 songs when I moved there, and about five of them were worth getting someone to listen to [laughs].

That was a starting point, and that was also when I started to look at and learn something about the business side of music. Before that, it was just about music. I just wanted to get in the car, go with the band, and get the girls. But when I got to Nashville, I had to start learning about the business, which was a great thing, because I formed my own publishing company, started writing my own songs, and it was a great feeling to own and have control somewhat over my material.

So I got my first check in 1993 when I signed to AudioQuest, the first time I got paid from a record company. All these years, and I’d never been paid. I couldn’t believe that. I was shocked. Then I started writing my songs, and it was a wonderful feeling to go to my mailbox and see my royalty checks coming in. That’s when I considered myself somewhat of a songwriter – when I started getting paid. David Kelley with Ally McBeal called me and wanted to use “The Man in Town.” They used that song in 12 episodes, and then I really thought I was a songwriter then, because they started sending me some serious checks [laughs].

You mentioned that you never really felt at home in Monroe. Would you say that New England feels like home?

No, it doesn’t. I was just telling my wife the other day that I feel like a vagabond, and I told her what I’m going to die from the most is a broken heart. I’ve been so alone my whole life, even in the midst of the crowd. And I don’t know what that’s from. I’m certainly fine with my God – I believe in my God with all my heart, and I try to serve him to the best of my ability, but I still feel something’s not quite right. I think it’s going to be fixed before it’s all over. Or this could be the thorn in my side, like Paul said.

It was hard to come to grips with the fact that I never saw my father. I still deal with that sometimes, and it still hurts. If you think about that – I never had a daddy. I see other people, and I think about how blessed they are. When I see a father and a son, I say it’s a blessing that they have each other. I just can’t seem to shake off that broken heart, even though I live with it and can go on and function very well. I’ll hear a certain song and think a certain thought, and I’ll start boo-hooing.

But I did decide after my mother died to separate myself from my siblings, because I just don’t like the game that they play with each other. It’s not real. I don’t want to put my head in the noose anymore. I have to resolve myself to stay away from that, and accept the fact that this is the role I have to play, and the cross I have to carry in this time that God gave me. I wrote this song, “I Just Wanna’ Be” – God, I don’t wanna’ be right, I don’t wanna’ be wrong, I just wanna’ be whatever it takes to make this work. I don’t care what’s wrong or right anymore. I just know that there are some things we have to accept, because there’s a power that’s bigger than us.

You’ve touched on it a little bit, but tell me a little more about how your faith plays into your music.

You can’t have one without the other. I live what I talk about. In fact, I can’t talk with you long without bringing God into the conversation. Just speaking for me – Sam McClain, I’m gonna’ be blessed to get through the rest of this day, and so will you, and so will everybody else. Right now as we’re speaking, somebody’s dying. That’s a cold reality that most people don’t like to think about, but it is.

People don’t like to talk about death, because they look at death as a bad thing. But where I come from, and my beliefs, death is just another door we’re going through. We’re just going to be closer to our father, our God. We’re just here for a moment – we don’t own nothing, and we didn’t bring nothing here. I have this song called “Be Ready” – I say I don’t care how big you are, how much money you got, you didn’t bring anything here when you came, and when you leave, you ain’t taking nothing with you. So you might want to think about something else besides that stuff you got. [laughs]

So what else are you doing these days as far as recording, performing, and touring? Is there anything in the works?

Well, I just got back from Europe in early May, and we’ll be going back to Greece in September. I’m in the studio recording right now. We started back recording, doing this project we’ve been working on since February. This is the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to record like I’m recording right now. We’re not under any pressure as far as studio recording, because my good friend owns the studio. He and I and my music director and guitar player Pat Herlehy are producing this project together. By Jerry owning the studio, it took that financial burden out of the way, so I’ve been able to go into the studio and take my time and do stuff like I really want to do it. If we don’t do it right, we record it again and fix it.

In the past, it’s always just been a few days to do it and that’s it. So to have the opportunity to give the music what you really think it needs is a pleasure. I’m really thankful to have lived this long to do this. This music is so good, and it’s so special. A couple of people have asked me what I think about the new music, and I think that I’m so blessed to have been lucky enough to be a part of this CD. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the outside looking in, and this is so different than anything I’ve ever done. Musically, people are going to here a lot of different instruments they’ve never heard before.

I try to think about everyone – young, old, black, white – I try to keep my music family oriented. Hopefully it will be something everyone can understand, because it reaches across barriers. That’s one thing I like about traveling around the world. I do better outside the country than I do here in the US. It’s been like that for the last fifteen years. I’ve been going to Japan, China, Russia, Turkey – places I’d never dreamed of going. This voice and this music carried me there. People write me, and they tell me what this music means to them. So my message and my faith play every bit of what my music is about. I’m here to entertain, but I’m also here to enlighten. I want people to know there is hope if they believe in themselves and believe in God, and treat people like they want to be treated. I just want to be a positive force, because I’ve done a lot of negative stuff in my life. God has let me live this long, so if I can do something to make up for it, I’m humbled.

Why do you think your music is bigger overseas than it is in the US?

They seem to have a better appreciation of music over there period. We have a tendency to take things for granted here in the US. We’re really spoiled with a lot of things. We’re crying about the gas being four dollars, when people over there have been paying five and six and seven dollars for gas for years. The hammer’s going to come down a little bit, and the sad thing about it is you have to take the bad with the good. We just don’t have our priorities in order, and that’s worldwide. But the word is getting out there.

Changing gears a little bit – what are people in store for at the Manchester Jazz & Blues Festival?

Well, my usual band will be there with me. That’s the only way I go.

Will you be playing any of the stuff from your new recording?

No, no.

Those songs aren’t ready to be unleashed yet?

No, no – we’re gonna’ keep the lid on this. [laughs] But I am doing some new stuff from a CD I recorded before I went to Turkey in 2004 called I Bet You Didn’t Know. I haven’t released that CD yet, because I got a couple of offers I thought were an insult, and I didn’t have the money at the time to release it on my own label. So I held up on it, but I just made a deal with a record company in the UK, so they’re getting ready to release that in Europe, and I’ll be doing a couple of selections from that. And some old stuff, new stuff.

I’ve got so many CD’s and so many songs now, and people have so many requests, you can’t fill them all. I can’t even sing everything I want to sing. But they can definitely expect to get the best of Mighty Sam. That’s just who I am. I used to could not wait to get off the stage, to go chase me a drink or chase me a woman. Now they cut the lights off on me. [laughs] What a difference a day makes.