Elevate Springfield

Elevate Springfield featuring Robert Sampson: Elevating Through the Power of Music, Faith, Resilience, and Pursuing His Passion

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Summary

In this conversation, Robert Sampson shares his inspiring journey as a musician, detailing his early influences, family background, and the challenges he faced growing up visually impaired. He discusses his evolution as a one-man band, the importance of audience engagement, and how he navigates the music industry while staying true to his roots in blues. Robert emphasizes the healing power of music and the joy it brings to both him and his audience, encouraging others to pursue their passions regardless of obstacles. 

Takeaways

  • Robert has a deep family heritage in music, with many relatives involved in the industry.
  • Robert emphasizes the importance of making people happy through music.
  • Robert's journey includes overcoming naysayers and pursuing his passion for music.
  • He enjoys performing in nursing homes, where he finds a grateful audience.
  • Robert believes it's never too late to pursue your dreams.
  • He encourages others to turn negativity into motivation. It's easy to let negativity affect you, but perspective is key.
  • Hard work is essential; dreams don't come true without effort.
  • Evaluate your steps regularly to ensure you're on the right path.
  • Joy is a deeper, more lasting feeling than happiness.

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SPEAKER_04

Welcome to Elevate Springfield, where we will dive into strategies and stories that help you rise to your full potential. Each episode, we'll talk about how you can take intentional steps to elevate your life and your business while making a meaningful impact on those around you. Along the way, we're going to bring in the change makers from our community that are already elevating. We'll bring the actionable strategies, you bring the discipline and follow through, and together we can elevate Springfield. Alright, let's go, Springfield. Time to 10X your life, your business, all of it. Time to crush those goals, time to get after it. Let's go. You are listening to the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Robert Farrell here, certified 10X coach, speaker, and mentor here to bring you actionable strategies. You bring the discipline and follow through. And together, we're going to Elevate Springfield. We're coming to you again from beautiful downtown Springfield in the Big Dog Construction Studio. Hey, we've got so much going on in Springfield right now. Make sure you are participating. Get out there, network with folks, be a part of the community, support local businesses, support local nonprofits, and let's go, we can all grow together. So, hey, another great episode for you today. We're gonna get right to our guest after the break. Hey, Springfield, when it comes to reliable, high-quality roofing, you don't want to leave things to chance. That's why you should reach out to Acosta Angeli Ruffing, your local roughing expert serving Springfield and surrounding communities. From quick, dependable repairs to full replacement, from residential to commercial, they are your trusted pros. Call them today at 217-993-2748 or visit their website to book your free quote and inspection. Don't wait. A little leak now could lead to major damage later. Trust the local experts, protect your home, and get peace of mind with Acosta Angeli Roofing. And we are back joining me in the studio now. Man, that's been a staple in the music community here for a while. Mr. Robert Samson, how are we doing today?

SPEAKER_02

How's everybody doing? Oh, I'm doing great, man. I'm doing, as my grandpa used to say, finest frog's hair. Hey, there you go.

SPEAKER_04

There you go. Good to have another Robert in the studio here. Let's go. Appreciate you coming down to downtown Springfield.

SPEAKER_02

When we talk, then you say, you know, finding your name is Robert. I said, hey, two Roberts can't be wrong. That's right.

SPEAKER_04

It's gonna be a good episode when you got two Roberts in the house, right? Right, right. So we're gonna talk all about what you do here locally within the music scene and everything. But first, let's learn a little bit about Robert. Tell me about your background, man.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I was born and raised in East St. Louis, Illinois. And uh I was born three months premature. So, you know, that's part of the reason why people look at me and they say, Oh, why are your glasses thick? I'm visually impaired. I attended the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired over in Jacksonville, Illinois. That's how I got in this area. So um when I started going to the school when I was seven, I was seven years old when I started the school. That's when I really started getting into music. But um I started playing piano when I was three years old. Really? So uh I was in foster care my entire life from the time that I was six months old to the time I was basically out of the system at the age of 21. And I'd been in 17 foster homes. I'd been abused a lot. Uh I always like to give God the glory because if it wasn't for God, I wouldn't be here. Because I went through circumstances that, you know, that would kill a lot of other people, and I still have my issues, you know, like everybody else does, you know, but I just feel so blessed to be able to do what I love, you know. Um I started playing piano at the age of three, and it was so interesting. I used to uh listen to a radio station out of East St. Louis called WESL.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So every Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, they'd have this blues and boogie hour where they would play blues stuff. And I remember I was three years old sitting on my bed. I can't tell you what song it was, but I heard this boogie woogie song on the radio, and I'm like, ooh. It was like a light switch went off. I like that. Yeah, it's like a light switch went off. So I was like, okay, okay. So I went into a living room where we had a piano, and I never touched it. I knew it made noise because my foster mother used to play a little bit. So I was like, I think I can play this thing. So I'm trying to climb up on the bench, you know, little bitty three-year-old Robert trying to climb up on the bench. Right. So she's always trying to get up on the bench, so she just kind of put me on the bench, kind of plopped me up on the plot me up on the bench, and I started playing what I heard on the radio. I start playing the bass notes. And uh, she goes, This boy is starting to play boogie woogie. And that's what started it all. So, you know, Boogie was with me from the very beginning, which I guess, you know, Boogie is a type of blues. You know, blues has been with me. I've been through a lot of stuff in my life, so blues has a special place in my heart. Latin gospel music have a very special place in my heart.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. So you just had that ear early on to where you didn't have to necessarily learn it, but from somebody you heard had that ear and you could replicate that on there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. I just had a natural ability and uh a God-given ability, is what I tell people, because it had to be instilled in me from somebody. I wasn't around my mom growing up, I wasn't around any of my siblings. And when we finally started getting to know one another, I found out that my mom played in a band called uh St. Louis Travelers, which was my family's singing gospel singing group. Oh, really? Well, then I found out just recently within the past oh month, month and a half, I found it that my mom used to uh travel on the road back in the uh 70s and 80s with a very famous gospel act. So she played guitar and she played a little bit of keyboard. I have I have five other siblings. I've got three sisters and two brothers. Two other brothers, and all of us play. Okay. All of us play and sing. My grandma played and sang. My grandma played guitar and sang. My grandpa was a preacher, he played and sang. I found out several years ago that I had an uncle named David, they call him David D, but his name is David Eckert. Um, he was a police officer in East St. Louis. Uh-huh. And uh he was also a musician. He had a hit called Goin Fishing Baby back in like the 80s. Really? Yeah. So I'm like, I know where I got this from the city. He's been the family roots then. Yeah, absolutely. It's it's deep in my family.

SPEAKER_04

So with your with your siblings, were they all with you through the foster care? Were you a little bit?

SPEAKER_02

We were all separated in different homes. Yeah. Um I stayed in a foster home, a couple different foster homes with my sister Roberta, but it was like in and out, in and out, in and out. Because when I was seven years old, I started going to the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired. That school was, if you know anything about that school, there's a lot of rich history at that school. The Braille Rider was invented at that school. Really? Yes.

SPEAKER_04

I was gonna say, no, I do not know much of the history there. So yeah, tell us a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, it's it's it's a great school. I mean, I started when I was seven years old and I graduated. That school, kids are allowed to basically go until they're like, I think right before their 22nd birthday. So I started late. I think when I started at the school, I started at first grade all over again because the school that I attended before that was in Godfrey, Illinois, you know, Lewis and Clark Elementary School. And I had so many problems trying to keep up with the other kids because I was visually impaired. They didn't know how to handle somebody with a disability, and they just pretty much stuck me in special ed because they were like, we don't know what to do. So stuck me in special ed, and I was behind the kids. I was six months behind the kids. And you know, school lasts for nine months. So you think I'm only one third of the way through the curriculum while the other kids are way past me. So they had some, they had a couple people from the Illinois School for Visual Impaired that were scouts at the time. They had uh scouts, so they heard about me, and so they came and basically just scoped me out for a day, looked at what I did in class and took notes, and then they realized, yeah, this is where he needs to be, is at the ISVI because of his visual impairment. And uh I started in the fall of 1987, and uh it saved my life. Wow. It because I I was always bullied as a kid because you know I didn't act like the other kids. I looked different than the other kids. I had kids making fun of me because they were saying, Oh, you don't have a mom and you don't have a dad. And it was always hurtful. But when I got to the ISVI, it was so different. It was so different because now all of a sudden I'm around people who understand visually impaired students. I'm around kids who are also blind and visually impaired like I am. So it made a massive difference in uh the way that I are perceiving the world. Oh, I bet. And you know, I always had a dream of becoming a musician. That was always my dream. I always wanted to do something with music because I I felt that calling on my life from the time I struck those piano keys when I was three years old. I said, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. Hard to believe that a three-year-old would make that kind of conscious decision. But that's awesome. Yeah, but I said, you know, I really want to play music. And I had some people being naysayers. Well, you can't play music, you can't make a living at it, nobody makes a living at it. Right. I'm thinking to myself, oh, let's see this BB King or Clapped. There's a lot of them out there, you know, John Fogarty, all these other people. I'm just like things like these people made a pretty nice living for themselves playing music. At a young age, I was just kind of into all sorts of kind of music, and then I really started honing in at the age of about 10 or 11. I started getting into Creden's Clearwater Revival. Oh, yeah. Oh my goodness. Changed my life. And the reason I say that is because it got me into uh Creden's did a cover of Night Time's the Right Time, which is a Ray Charles song. Okay. It's weird how Creden's got me into Ray Charles, and Ray Charles didn't get me into Richard Charles. Right. So I was like, okay, okay. So then they also did a version of Good Golly Miss Molly, which was a little richer tune. So I started getting into a little Richard. So Creeden's really was the gateway for me to get into all sorts of different music. You know, and I just kind of snowballed from there. And then I was really not that much of a, I don't want to say I wasn't a blues fan, but I hadn't heard much blues until I got in my twenties. You know, and I I really started digging some of the old blues stuff that I heard in, like Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters, and I love all sorts of blues. I love everything from the basic Delta stuff all the way to the electrified Chicago sound.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02

You know, it's all great stuff to me. And I like all sorts of music. I like 50s music, 60s music, you know, 70s, some 80s. I get stuck on YMG and it's like I know every word, almost every song that comes on YMG. But then somebody says, hey, can you play this song? I know the words, or I can't play it. Play it. I've listened to it for Yeah, that's my musical journey is just kind of really interesting. You know, how I got into different genres of music and getting into different instruments. I play 16 different instruments. 16? Yes. Wow. I play a little bit of pedal steel.

SPEAKER_04

So you gotta tell us some of those because I can start naming them off that I could guess probably at the top five or six, but then I don't maybe the next 10 you might have to tell us.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. And I want to plug right quick the album that I have called uh They Call Me Lefty Preacher. And I'll get into that, why I got how I got that nickname, how I got that nickname. Yeah. Um when I when I decided I wanted to record that album a few years ago, it sat on the shelf. I recorded the album. It sat on the shelf for almost two years before I even did anything with it. I had recorded it and didn't even master it, didn't get it mastered or anything. Um I had it recorded in Jacksonville, Illinois at a little little private studio, and I took all my instruments with me. Like, not all of them, but a majority of them. I had my keyboard, I had an organ keyboard, a Leslie, I had uh three different guitars, my bass guitar, my banjo, uh, my acoustic guitar. I just had all sorts of different instruments, but I play lap steel, I play a little bit of pedal steel, not that great at it. You know, it's kind of one of those instruments that it takes a long time just to get bad. Sure. You know, I play saxophone, I can play baritone sax, uh alto, tenor, you know, soprano.

SPEAKER_04

I played all those growing up, actually. I was a saxophone player growing up. So at some point I played I played all of them in a different band or jazz band.

SPEAKER_02

Because they're all they're all I mean if you can play one, yeah, you can pretty much play just like uh my sister Roberta plays clarinet, and I knew I I don't tell people I can play clarinet, but if I can play saxophone, clarinet's just Oh yeah, yeah, you get that. Oh yeah, yeah. But I don't tell people I play clarinet because I've never touched one. So I'm not gonna tell people that I play clarinet. But uh Yeah, I play piano and organ and drums, percussion. I play a lot of different percussion instruments. Banjo, I got a six-string banjo at home. I play a little bit of mandolin.

SPEAKER_04

Do you have an absolute favorite?

SPEAKER_02

My two favorites, well, three favorites are organ. Well, I'm glad it's backtracked. My four favorites are drums, I like bass, I like guitar, and I could I classify organ and keyboard in the same kind of category. Sure. So those are those are my favorites. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

You know. Did you uh at the school, did you guys have a band? Did you play in a in groups, or was it all outside of school that you were learning all this stuff?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it was at school because see, school, the ISVI is a residential school. So it's a lot like college. They have dormitories and such, and the kids stay home. They stay at the school for a while, then they go home on break, stay at school for a while, go home on break. You know, it's it's a college kind of atmosphere.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And um I had uh several of my friends, and I remember all their names, like growing up, my best friend in the world was uh Jason Meeks. He's passed on, and I miss him every day. So there was Jason, there was Chad Morrison, Nick Sharp, Craig Humphrey, Clint Murphy, and then myself. And a lot of time we would rotate like different musicians sometimes, and we called ourselves Apollo. And the reason we called ourselves Apollo 13 was one day Nick, Nick and I, we toted our guitars everywhere on campus we went. I mean, we were just like if I was in the bathroom, I had my guitar. If I was doing homework, which I should have been doing, I was playing guitar, you know. So I was always, you know, more driven towards guitar at that time. And Nick and I just we played together all the time. We were never caught anywhere not singing. Sure. We were singing the songs that we were singing chorus, we'd be singing our own arrangement that we'd be creating, and we just had a lot of fun. And we called ourselves Apollo 13 because one day Nick and I were sitting there jamming and he's playing guitar, I'm playing guitar, and we're playing, and I broke a string on my guitar. I said, Houston, we have a problem. And as soon as I said that, I was like, you know what? I think that'd be a great day for a band. He goes, What? Because at that time Apollo 13 was a thing, the movie. Yeah. So I was like, I said, Well, we should call ourselves Apollo 13. Like, and that kind of began the whole that was the first band I ever. We played every talent show from basically 1992 to about when Nick left to go to the Tennessee School for the Blind. So it was about three years. We did the talent show three years in a row. That was fun. Oh, I still got the recording of our first talent show. And we were doing the song uh traveling band by CCR. Because we I got Nick into CCR. He just knew Billy Ray Cyrus in 90s country. That's mainly what he knew. But like I got him into CCR and we played traveling band, and I mean we thought, boy, you thought we were playing Carnegie Hall. I mean, we we were so excited. And me and Nick were actually just talking on the phone yesterday. I said, Man, you know, we really thought we were hot stuff, man. I said, he said, yeah, we did, didn't we? I said, yeah, we thought we were something. I said, you know, Nick, I still got the recording of our first performance when we did traveling band. I said, it was awful. Oh my goodness. We started out slow, but by the time the song was over, we were double speed. Oh, okay. So I'm like good to see where you where you started and where you come from, man. Absolutely. Yeah, we've uh come a long way in he plays music. He doesn't do it for a living, but he plays music. And he lives down in Nashville. And my friend Chad, he does music every once in a while. He does stuff like in studios, does mastering and stuff. So yeah, we're all into music some way or another. And out of all of us, I'm the only one that actually pursued a music career because before I started playing music in the early 2000s, when like 2001, I was working at a gas station as what they call the lot guy. So basically I was the janitor. It was my job cleaning the pumps, make sure everything. And I remember one day uh some people that took over the place wanted their family to work there, so uh I just went on ahead and just relinquished my job. And I remember sitting at breakfast with my friend, and this was back 2003, and I told my friend, I said, Man, I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I said, he said, Man, he goes, You're a great musician. He goes, Why don't you pursue a mu music career? And I said, Yeah, but that takes this and that, this and that. He goes, he goes, D you've got more excuses than you've got reasons. You knew he goes, you need to flop that man. Yeah, stop making excuses and and and come up with reasons why you want to do what you want to do. And I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_04

So that flipped that switch then.

SPEAKER_02

And then so in the early 2000s, I had a band. It wasn't, I don't call it my band, we were just a band, and we called ourselves bootleg. We were all young. I mean, I was, oh gosh, 21, 22. The guys in the band were like 18 and 19, and we play bars, and their parents would have to come to the bar because you know they were underage. But we were playing a lot of stuff that people were just raising their eyebrows because they're like, these kids are that young, and they're playing like the doors and the course TCR. Yeah. And we were playing things like the Beatles, and we were playing all sorts of stuff. People are like, these kids really got something special going on. Unfortunately, it didn't last a long time. Once we broke up as a band, I just started thinking, man, what am I gonna do now? So I bought myself a keyboard that had a sequence that has a sequencer built into it, so you can do all the different parts. I learned how to play drums on the keyboard, and I'm not talking about programming drums, I'm talking about each individual key plays a drum sound. I'm talking about learning to play drums on the keyboard. So I learned how to do that, and uh I soon learned how to take up bass, and uh, before too long, that's all I would do, sit at home and record this stuff and put it on a little three and a half floppy. You remember those. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah. So what I would do was I would take the songs and I would because each disc would only hold 10 songs. So I would do British invasion stuff, and it was all like British stuff, and then I would do classic 50 stuff, and I had several discs of classic 50 stuff, and one day it just dawned upon me, I'm doing all this. Why can't I just become a one-man band? So I used to record those tracks, and then when I got and play, when I started going out and play, I would take the keyboard with me and I would put the discs in the keyboard and I'd let it play the backing track while I played guitar to it and sang. Then I got to the point to where I started recording my own vocals. I got a little bit better equipment, I got a better keyboard, and I just kept progressing with what I did. And eventually it just became, you know, something like I'm I've played so many places doing this one man band thing that I do. I play here in Springfield every other Wednesday at Full Gensies. Y'all that y'all, y'all that don't come to Full Gensies every other Wednesday, you're missing out.

SPEAKER_04

There you go. Every other what time's that on every other Wednesday?

SPEAKER_02

Six o'clock to nine o'clock.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. So when's the next one, just so we know which every other Wednesday is coming Wednesday. This coming Wednesday, which will be May 13th. Yes. Right. May 13th. So every other Wednesday from there. Yes. Okay, cool. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02

Six o'clock to nine o'clock. I want to give uh Sandy and John Fulgenzi a big shout out because uh it was really cool that they allowed me to come in and and another guy I want to give a big shout out to who actually got me in there was Terry Young. He's the guy that got me in there playing, and uh one of the guys that uh I really look up to is uh Al Kitchen, because he kind of does like the one-man band thing too. When I look at how he's gr gathering a following, I admire what he does. And uh being a one-man band is not as easy as a lot of people think it is.

SPEAKER_04

I don't think it's easy.

SPEAKER_02

It's actually a lot more difficult, it's actually a lot more difficult than in a band. Uh-huh. Because when you're in a band, all you gotta do is learn your part.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know, when you're a one-man band, you have to learn all the parts. Every part, yes, exactly. And then you gotta take that and say, okay, I don't want to play this song just like the record. Some of them I'd play just like the record because it's so good, it's like trying to alter it just wouldn't work. Right. You know, like a down on the corner, for example. Trying to alter that in any kind of way would just be heresy to me. So, you know, I try my best to get things close when they need to be, but I also try to keep an open mind and say, hey, how can I take this song and make it my own?

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know, and it's that interpretation that keeps me really wanting to do what I do, you know, being able to interpret something differently than you hear it. My mind does that in my sleep. I'll I I turn on the radio every night when I sleep, and I can hear music when the music is playing, I can hear it in my sleep. And, you know, I don't like bragging because I'm not a braggart, but you know, you ever heard the expression where people go, Oh, I can do that in my sleep. Yeah. Literally, I can write music in my sleep. Wake up and then I came through, yeah. Yeah, and I have to run down to the studio and write stuff down or record it. Uh-huh. And I just it's gotta be a God thing because I just don't understand how I'm even able to do that. Like I'll hear something and the words come to me in my sleep, or the melody will come to me in my sleep, and I just go, I gotta go, I gotta go record this.

SPEAKER_04

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's It's fun. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04

So your career started in early 2000s and you've been doing it ever since, right? Yes. Okay. Cool. So when you're out performing, like this, this right here, you said this is all original music. It's all original. Yes. All original blues. Yep. So when you're out performing, do you do a blend of covers and originals, or what do you typically do?

SPEAKER_02

Depends on the crowd. The difficult part with being in an area like this is if you're playing all original music, you got to play to an open-minded crowd that's going to enjoy just originals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, which is hard. It's difficult. But I find that if you play mostly covers and stick a few of your originals in there, I play also at the Route 66 Mother Road Diner, the one on South Sixth. Yeah. Just down the road from you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I most of the crowd down there are older people. So I try to stick to the 50s and 60s music, which they love. And I love it too. So we when I play that stuff, sometimes I'll throw some of my songs in that I've written that sound more like that 50s or 60s style.

SPEAKER_04

That makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So that way it blends in, and there's nothing more gratifying than when you see somebody get up and dance to the song that you wrote. You know, it's like, wow, they dig what I'm doing. It's a labor of love because, you know, this is what I do for a living. This isn't just a hobby for me. Right. This is my occupation. Well, do you ever get tired of playing? I said, Well, the time I ever get tired of playing, that's when I'm going to hang it up and call it quits.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

I play in nursing homes. I played in so many nursing homes. I play a lot of, there's a few of them I play here in Springfield. I play some in Jacksonville. And I love playing in nursing is almost better than any other place because those people are so appreciative. You know, they they're they're I hate to put it this way, but they're a captive audience. Right. You know, but they don't get much in nursing homes. When I play that 50s music and 60s music, and they absolutely just love it. Oh, as I say, I bet they do love it. No doubt about it. And I love making people happy. That's my EMO to play music. Uh-huh. The money is the money is secondary, but making people happy is what I love to do. I love to see people smile. I love to hear people laugh. I love to see people get up and dance. I just love to people see people enjoying life. Because we live in a world now that's full of so much hate, full of so much strife and pain, and it's like, man, I just want to see people forget about their problems for a while.

SPEAKER_04

I love that. And that's I was just about to ask you, how do you feel like you elevate your crowd and your your clients that are out there? And it's that. I mean that's how you do it, man.

SPEAKER_02

You got to make people happy. Making people happy makes me happy, which in turn, you know, it's it's a cycle. When you can make people happy and they make you happy, it's it's a continuous flow. You know, it's a like a it's a cycle. You feed off them, they feed off of you.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. Over the years performing any songs that just almost always hit that everybody everybody loves that song when you play that thing.

SPEAKER_02

I'd have to say Cool Jerk, Do You Love Me? You know about it. Do you love me? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I won't. And there's a few of them Twisting the Night Away by uh Sam Cook. Uh-huh. Yeah. Any song that talks about a dance that's up tempo, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

All over it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah. I love seeing some of these elderly people just get up and dance. When I play at the uh Mother Road Diner, they will dance from first song to last song. It doesn't matter how slow it is, it doesn't matter how fast it is. They get up and dance. I'm like, wow, I hope I when I get that age and I've got that much energy. Still getting after it for that long.

SPEAKER_04

Yep, absolutely. You said you we were talking before we went on air here. You also do private events. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_02

I do, I do weddings and birthday parties. I even do corporate events if need be. And I have done some corporate events. Oh, okay. Yep. Very cool. And like I said, I love 50s and 60s music, but blues is my main thing. I've got my own blues band, uh, the Robert Sampson band. I've played with a lot of different people. I've played with Mary Joe Curry, I've played with uh Brandon Santini, I've played with uh James Armstrong, I've played with David Lumston, a lot of a lot of local blues people I've played with, you know. And most of the time it's uh uh uh keyboards because it's it's really hard. Guitar players nowadays are a dime a dozen, but it's really hard to find a good keyboard player because a lot of people, when they learn to play piano, they just don't stick with it.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

When they're when kids are young and they learn to play, they just kind of get to the point where they're like, yeah, this doesn't interest me anymore.

SPEAKER_04

Almost like a gateway to the next entry in uh instrument type of thing. It seems to move up to something else.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I hear more people go, man, I wish I would have kept up with my piano lessons when I was a kid. I hear that time and time again. Uh-huh. I was like, oh, it's never too late.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I was like, yeah, as long as you're breathing, it's never too late. Absolutely. That's what I try to tell people all the time. It's never too late to make something of yourself. I thought in my twenties, I was all washed up, and that's a young age, you know, in your 20s. And I thought, man, I've hit a brick wall.

SPEAKER_04

And how'd you push past that brick wall?

SPEAKER_02

I just have to think about the people that I want to make happy and the music that I love. And sometimes I get in this funk where I'm like, man, I'm playing the same thing. I don't want people to think that I'm getting old or just getting tired. I don't necessarily reinvent myself, but I constantly try to improve myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

That's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and that's elevate. You know, that's that's what it's about. You know, you got to rise. You know, I had to rise above some terrible circumstances in my life that I thought I would never be able to rise above. With the help of the Lord, and I'll I'll keep saying that, with the help of the Lord, that's the only way that I could elevate myself. You know, I had a lot of people in my life giving me a push, saying, you can do this, you can do this. But I also had people that were like, you can't do this and you can't do that. I'll tell you what's very strange is the people that were supporting me didn't push me as much as the people that were negative towards me. So that's the hardest thing in life is to be able to take a negative and turn into a positive.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

It's like, so how do I take, you know, the old expression, how do I take lemons and make lemonade? You know, and I think to myself, you know, prove them wrong.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Well, and you you look at athletes, some of the greatest athletes ever had that to where like Tom Brady in football, best quarterback ever. He was drafted way, way late. So his whole career, he's like, I'm gonna show him. I'm gonna show him. Even Michael Jordan, you know, didn't get picked for a team early on in life. I'm gonna show him.

SPEAKER_02

And it's not, it's not that I want to show him like, oh, I want to show them how arrogant I can be. It's like, okay, if people are saying that I can't, I'm gonna show them that I can take that apostrophe T and throw it out.

SPEAKER_04

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Because I can't turn a can into a can. No doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04

Love that. Love it. A lot of times, those naysayers, those doubters around you, yeah, can be fuel if you use it the right way.

SPEAKER_02

And that's the hardest thing. And that's the thing I want to tell everybody that's listening. You can always turn a negative into a positive. It just depends on what you want to do and where your brain's at. It's so easy to let things get to you and people go say negative things to you, and it's so easy for it to just be interpreted as negative. But that's the thing I've tried in my life to try to interpret things differently than a lot of people do. Because I play music that's some of the music I play is twice as old as I am. I just have always been what they call an old soul. I've always liked to do things the old-fashioned way, work hard. You know, your dreams don't come true if you don't work for them. And, you know, that's why somebody goes, Oh, you ought to go on American Idol, you ought to go on The Voice. I said, I don't want to. I said, because I don't want instant overnight success. I want to work for what I have. And I'm not saying those people haven't worked, those people that are on that show haven't worked for what they've got, but I'd rather plug away and work that my way up the ladder. Because the thing I learned is the quicker you go up the ladder, the farther you have to fall. And as you go along in life, evaluate your steps. You know, and um I evaluate my steps every single time I record something. I'll I'll sit there and I'll record something. I'm like, I don't like it. And I'll erase it all over again, and then I'll start all over again and I'll erase it all over again. I mean, there's times when I've been 16 hours on a single song without a break.

SPEAKER_04

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's I guess that's just a perfectionist. Yeah, dedication to your craft, man. And sometimes what I have to do is I gotta step away for a minute. And that's another thing. Some people just, you gotta sometimes, if things become overwhelming, step back and look at it from a different light. Say, if I record a song and I say, man, I'm getting tired. I can't, I can't even keep my eyes open, I'll say, Let me go to bed. I'll wake up in the morning and listen to it with fresh ears. Because you'll be amazed at what how different things sound when you listen to it with fresh ears. You know, because sometimes you get fatigued and things just don't sound the same. Your brain's not processing things the same. Same thing in life. You know, sometimes things get to where you just gotta step back and go, I gotta just take a break. I gotta take a break and I gotta look at things from a whole different point of view and come back to it. And then I can say, okay, maybe this decision I made here wasn't exactly the best, you know, and the crazy thing, and I love this elevate spring field. I love the whole elevate, I love the whole elevate thing because sometimes to elevate, you have to go down and then back up and then down and then back up. It's never just like an elevator. An elevator just doesn't go up, just go up, up, up, up, up, because that's called an escalator.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, a lot of times it's not linear. Yeah, you have these dips and pops. And one more note on the the naysayers out there. What we talk a lot about in 10x is if you're if you're not garnering some naysayers, if people aren't saying stuff like that, you're probably not doing up because people only say that when you are challenging the status quo or challenging what can be done or challenging their thought process. So if you don't have a few naysayers in your life, you're probably not quite pushing hard enough.

SPEAKER_02

And that's the thing nowadays, you know, is nowadays you have a lot of people that have their thoughts. They have their thoughts and what they think. And anything outside of their own thought process, they just get they they they've built a wall. God gave me a vision one time, and this doesn't just apply to, you know, uh being a Christian like I am. This also applies to life. God told me that every blessing that I give you is another brick. So you can either take that and build a wall between you and me, or you can take it and pave a road to heaven. So I look at that in life. Every experience we go through, like the old song says, another brick in the wall. I mean, that's literally what that's what that's about. That's what that song is about. You know, I feel that every situation is another brick. I can get mad and use that brick to chuck at somebody or hurt somebody, or I can take that brick and say, I want to use this to pave a path to my success. There's been times in my life where I was building up a wall. And I can't I can't sit here and lie to you and say that, you know, sometimes I remove those bricks out of that road and start trying to build a wall again. But you know, that's when we need people to come around and ground us. But to have friends, to have friends and family and people that love you, that are there, that accept you for who you are, you know, that's part of elevation is people accepting you for who you are. All this stuff sounds philosophical, but it it leads to everything in life, whether it be music, whether it be whether you're a doctor, whether it be you're a cab driver or whatever you do in life. You know, you gotta have goals, you gotta have something that says, this is who I am, this is what I want to become. Because being stagnant is horrible. Right. I've been there.

SPEAKER_04

And having those gives you that motivation, that drive, that action, and have those actionable steps to be able to pursue it.

SPEAKER_02

It is not easy sometimes. I mean, sometimes, like when I first moved to Jacksonville, I knew I wanted to be a musician, but the first thing that I did is I went around to bars listening to different bands. I w I was watching the crowd, I was taking mental notes. Hey, this song went well with these people. Okay, they like this kind of music. Okay, this song's not so hot. So I was looking at the strengths and the weaknesses of like a lot of people, and it wasn't I wasn't judging them at all, but I was just like, I was taking notes so I could say, okay, this is where I have to start. I have to study first. I can't just jump into it with both feet and expect it to work. You got to study, you know. Like I said, I play different styles of music. I study. I study different styles, like blues. I have studied blues, I've studied gospel music, I've studied all sorts of things, you know, because I'm involved with the Illinois Central Blues Club. You've heard of them, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I do what's called the blues in the schools program. We usually do it in February, but I teach kids about blues music. I teach kids about where blues got started, what started it. That's cool. The different elements of blues. I'm not saying I'm the smartest person in the world when it comes to blues, but I've studied it and I went through it. I went through the blues. I I've been through the struggle, the pain, not knowing where my next meal is going to come from. And to transcribe that from basically living life to music, that's what the beauty of blues is. Being able to transcribe real life experiences into notes and making everybody understand how you feel through a bend of a string or you know, or playing the piano or your voice. Yeah. That's what's amazing to me.

SPEAKER_04

That's powerful.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Powerful.

SPEAKER_02

And uh you were asking me earlier uh about the lefty preacher thing. Yeah, that's what I was just about to ask you again. I was like, why you why they call you the lefty preacher? Okay. Several years ago, um, I was playing in St. Louis uh with uh they got a a big group of musicians up in Chicago. They call themselves the Blues family. So these guys are guys that have played with like very famous people. We're talking Muddy Waters. I I hate to refer to people as B uh B or C listers, but they're but basically guys that have played with a lot of famous people. So they got their little group. And one year when I went to the Ill uh one year when I went to the International Blues Challenge down in Memphis, I was representing the Illinois Central Blues Club. I met this guy from Australia, and he was friends with it took a guy from Australia for me to make friends with people that are in my own state. Right. So his name is Jay. He calls himself Jay Moon, Moondog is what he calls himself.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So we met down at the Gibson, at the Gibson guitar factory in Memphis, and we were just playing together and we kept a contact. He comes over to America during the summer because when it's summer over here, it's winter over in Australia, it's winter. So he comes over here during our summer and he's friends with all these guys. He goes, hey man, I know that you live in Jacksonville, Illinois. That's only about two hours away from St. Louis. Would you be willing to come down? He goes, because I'm going to be staying with some guys up in Chicago. We're coming down to St. Louis to do like a three-day thing. Would you be willing to come down to St. Louis and play? And I said, What do you guys need me to play? They said, Oh, guitar, keys, whatever you feel like you want to play. I said, Okay. So that's when I when I went down there and I played with these guys. I met Ed Nisi. He's played for a lot of people. I eventually met a guy by the name of Robert Stroger, who is a famous blues bassist that's played for a lot of famous people. And uh I call him Pops. And he's a really good friend of mine. And saw a lot of these people when I met them and I started playing. We were playing at a gig one day. Uh I think we were down at the Oyster Bar down in uh St. Louis. We were playing, and I'm sitting there just jamming on my guitar. So I play left-handed. Okay. So I'll try to explain this so it doesn't get confusing because it confuses me sometimes. I gotta stop and say, okay, how do I do this? I play left-handed on a right-handed guitar. But if you look at the way that a right-handed guitar is strung, if you're looking right at the guitar from left to right, your uh low string will be left, and you're as you go, as you go from left to right, your string gets smaller. So if Bris is playing right-handed, they're playing like this. Well, I play left-handed, so I strum with this hand. So that this the hand you strum with is the is the hand that they classify your playing as.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So I I would think they would be the hand that you fretted with that they would consider, you know, your, you know, whatever hand you are, but whatever hand that you're you know, you're using the pick or strumming the strings with. So I play left-handed on a right-handed guitar, strung backwards and up upside down. Sort of like Jimi Hendricks did. Jimi Hendricks would flip his strings around proper for a left-handed person. My strings are still strung right-handed. So basically I just take a right-handed guitar and I just flip it over. And then I play it, I play in open tuning. So if you were to play, say, an E-chord in the first position, that's the way I tune my guitar. So not only is it upside down and backwards, but the tuning is completely different. So it's just uh very, it's a very odd. They tried to give me guitar lessons back in back when I was a kid in my teens, and I remember the guitar teacher going, I can't teach him anything. I don't know. So what he would do was he would come and he would he would just basically play something, and I basically just play it back to him in my tuning. And that's the only way that I was able to really do anything. And I eventually just had to learn all the guitar licks and how to play all that stuff, just literally by, you know, by trial and error. Because I I at the time when I was growing up, there's no such thing as YouTube.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Uh they didn't have any Mel Bay books that, you know, that taught people how to play, you know, that way. So basically, you know, I was in Uncharted Waters. You know, I was like, man, how am I gonna, you know, but I never second guessed myself. I said, I'll learn how to do it.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And I sit down for hours and hours upon hours and learn how to, you know, do things and it was very interesting. Getting back to what I was saying about the lefty preacher thing. So I'm playing, playing, and I'm doing a solo, and I heard a guy in the front row, it was like a patio, and the guy in the front row was like, that guy's playing left-handed on a right-handed guitar.

SPEAKER_01

And he goes, Go on ahead, lefty, play it lefty, play lefty.

SPEAKER_02

So then we started doing like, I think it was Stormy Monday blues, and I was singing, and man, I really started belting it out. And I started to sound like a and I and the way I was belting it out sounding like a southern.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, okay, getting into that preacher mode.

SPEAKER_02

So that's when the dude was like, Go on ahead, lefty preacher. And I'm like, I'm gonna use that. I like the sound of that. That's cool. And that's where the whole lefty preacher thing came from.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, all right. That's awesome. Well, tell me about the vibe of this here. So, Robert Sampson, they call me Lefty Preacher. You got all your songs on the back here. Just tell me about the vibe of the album.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so when I recorded that album, the idea was to take people on a trip. It was the idea was to take people on a trip to hear different styles of blues. We start with bad case of the blues. Okay. So that's a very basic blues tune. It's very, you know, just acoustic guitar and like a little bit of like a little bit of bass in the background. But what we did was we took a piece of we took a piece of plywood and we mic'd a piece of plywood, and I was stomping on the plywood, and that's the sound that you hear in the background that sounds like a bass drum. We mic'd a piece of plywood to make it sound like somebody sitting on a front porch, like down in the south. That's interesting. So yeah, so it it was designed to sound very basic, very Delta blues sounding.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Then we got When Grandpa Sang the Blues.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, when grandpa sang the blues. That one is a little more involved. That one's got some some resonator guitar in it and stuff like that. And it's a true story about how I got into blues music listening to my grandpa. He used to sit on the porch when he lived in East St. Louis. He'd sit on the porch and he'd play guitar, and you'd see people from the neighborhood just come and flock to the front porch, and they'd sit on the on the lawn and listen to him play. And uh uh my grandma would just be sitting there right beside him and stomping her foot, you know. And that song is a true story about how I got into the blues because my grandpa was a preacher and played blues.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_02

All right.

SPEAKER_04

So then we got Roll My Sorrows Away.

SPEAKER_02

All right, that's a great one. It's it's it's a little more involved, like there's drums and bass, and uh, and it talks about, you know, in my life, there's been days that I woke up and I just felt like I I was I felt the blues deep, you know.

SPEAKER_01

And I'd wake up and I'd grab my guitar and I just start playing, and it just eased my ease my mood because it starts off going, Well I get up in the morning, just before the break of day. Well, I get up in the morning, just before the break of day, well, I play my blues and roll my sorrows away.

SPEAKER_02

Love it. That's obviously what it talks about is getting up, playing, rolling your sorrows away.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. We got walk out the blues.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, walk out the blues is a fun way. Just a funky little number. Uh it talks about when you're feeling blue, getting up and just walking. Sometimes, sometimes you just gotta walk out your problems. You know, you just gotta get up and just, you know, one line in the song that says, I gotta walk out these blues because I won't let them be the death of me. Saying, I got I gotta get up and do something.

SPEAKER_04

I gotta get moving. I'm gonna get it. Exactly. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

Land of milk and honey. Land of milk and honey is a song that was that I wrote that talks about basically my faith and how I believe in going to heaven. You know, because in the Bible it talks about that God gave the Israelites, his chosen people, a land flowing with milk and honey. And that's what it's talking about. It's talking about how one day I'll be back, I'll be in heaven with my mom. You know, one day I won't have any troubles. I won't have any troubles no more. I'll be in the land of milk and honey on God's golden shore. You know, part of the line kind of came from um the end part of uh uh the song they did at Old Brother Were Art Dow. Do you remember that song? Um Man of Constantoro. So one of the last lines they said is they talked about God's golden shore, and that's where I got that particular piece of lip from.

SPEAKER_04

Very cool. And mind your own business, and then and you take care of you.

SPEAKER_02

This song is fun. This song is a New Orleans-based song. So as you can tell, as we're you know, talking about the songs, they're kind of progressing, kind of moving a little bit, sometimes west, sometimes, you know, uh sometimes uh north. But mind your own business. That song I do out live because it makes a lot of people laugh. It basically talks about people that don't won't mind their business. Won't mind their own business. Yes. Right. And uh if you don't mind, do you mind if I quote you some lyrics from the song? Oh, go for it. So the first verse says, I used to know this woman in everybody's affair. She'd tell you all about it and she wouldn't care. She walks six blocks just to gossip and talk. There's something she's got to do. I said, Mind your own business and you take care of you. And then the chorus goes, Mind your own business, you take care of you. You're gonna find out. These words I say are true. You got to quit your squawking, you got to quit your talking, telling everybody's news. Mind your own business and you take care of you.

SPEAKER_04

Come on.

SPEAKER_02

Get it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

There we go.

SPEAKER_02

And that's basically what it talks about is how people gossip and you know, and uh that that's that started because I used to live in an apartment building, and people, if they got whiff of anything, it would just turn into like a gossip fest. Gossip fire going everywhere. Then we got hard hearing blues. Hard hearing blues. Oh my gosh. I hate to say this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. So one day I came home and I had some groceries in the vehicle, and I come up and I I told I I called to my wife. My wife since passed, but I called her and said, Hey, I got some groceries. Can you help me bring them in the house? No answer. I'm like, honey, went upstairs, went downstairs. I couldn't find her. She was in the backyard sitting in the lawn, sitting in the lawn chair, smoking a cigarette, talking to one of her friends on the phone. So I was like, I looked at her and said, you know what? You're giving me a case of the hard hearing blues. And that's where it's like. It talks about basically how the person in the song, from a point of view, is trying to have a relationship with a person, but they can't have a relationship with that person because they talk about how they just won't hear, they won't understand, they don't, you know, comprehend. Story of the blues. Story of the blues is a fun song. That is a it starts off with a very basic old sound. Because the idea that I had was, you know, what if we start this song with just Wade in the Water? Because you know that's a public domain song because it's an old Negro spiritual. So we started off, and I told the guy that was doing the recording, I said, Can you add some record scratching and stuff to? I said, I want this thing to sound like I'm in the holler somewhere. It starts on Wade in the water, wait in the water, you know, my God's gonna trouble the water. And basically, that was the Negro spiritual part. So as the song progresses, it basically not only tells the story of the blues, you know, a slave man in the cotton field singing out the blues. He ain't got no money, he ain't got no food. As the song progresses, it gets a little more livelier. And by the end of the song, it's like full electric. So that's the idea of that song to take a that's the idea of the of that song is to take you on a trip. It's like the final trip to take you through all the blues from days of slavery to basically how it got electrified. You know, so really it goes from about 1865 to about 1965. Okay. That 100-year stretch was of the evolution of the blue of blues music.

SPEAKER_04

Very cool. Then you got the title track, They Call Me Lefty Preacher. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

And basically that just talks about Yeah, it kind of tells the story, but it also, you know, it says they call me Lefty Preacher, I was born to sing the blues. They call me lefty preacher, I was blown to sing the blues, you know. It just talks and it talks about a I was born with a guitar in my left hand. My mama said, Son, one day you're gonna be a big bad blues man. Okay. So it just talks about my journey, you know, playing playing blues music and says I can play something soft and sweet or something to make you move your feet, you know. It just talks about, you know, the different blues stuff.

SPEAKER_04

And then we finish out with Born with the Blues.

SPEAKER_02

That is that is one of the most sentimental songs to me. Uh it's one of those songs where there's music, but I also speak in the song, and it talks about my struggles being in foster care, being in abused, sexually abused as a child, being beaten, being a lot of it goes back to that particular stuff that I dealt with in life.

SPEAKER_03

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. And it's one of those songs when I've played it, because I've been involved in the blues challenge in in Memphis. I think I went there and represented the Illinois Central Blues Club like eight or nine different times. And in those eight or nine times that I represented, do you know anything about the about the uh blues challenge?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I heard about Timo, I think, told me about it. Yeah, Timo told me about it.

SPEAKER_02

My my blues band, I I I got a group of people that I that play in my band, and we just kind of rotate and he's he's one of the guitar players.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, awesome. So Yeah, we talked about it a little bit, but other than that, I don't know a lot about it.

SPEAKER_02

So the blues challenge is the world's largest blues festival. So it's a competition they do every year down in uh down in Memphis, and you basically just compete, and you the last day of the thing is a Saturday, and which is where when they have the finals. I'm a four-time world finalist in that competition. That's awesome. Me and another guy are the only ones that have ever been finalist in that competition four times.

SPEAKER_04

Wow. Congrats on that. Thank you so much. So cool.

SPEAKER_02

It's something I don't really talk about a lot because I don't like sounding like a bragger. That's an amazing accomplishment, though. But I'm very proud of it because you know it's uh it's something that, you know, only other one person I believe is done. Me and this other guy are the only ones in the entire world that have done it. That's amazing. And yeah, yeah, it's but I remember singing this song in the blues challenge because I did all the original material. And I remember when I sang the song, what really got me more than anything else is a guy come up to me who was one of the judges, and he had tears in his eyes, and he was crying, and he hugged me. He said, I've never had a blues song make me cry. Wow. He goes, I've never had something move me so much as that song that you that born with the blues. He's like, Man, that is just a powerful, powerful song.

SPEAKER_04

Wow. I'm looking forward to hearing it. Yeah. I want to hear it. So well, Robert, so much great stuff today, man. I loved hearing your story.

SPEAKER_02

I appreciate the time, man. I I really appreciate uh you giving me the opportunity to tell folks what I do.

SPEAKER_04

And we might have to have you in again. We'll do a little live performance right here on Elevate Breaking. I would love to. Kind of like Timo he did one of his songs on the on the show here. So we might have to have you back on the show.

SPEAKER_02

By the way, Timo, you're doing great stuff, my friend. Keep doing what you do, man. You you're doing great stuff, you know. Yes, indeed. And one thing I want to say before we get off the air is we musicians here in central Illinois need to support one another. It's very important that, you know, we show up to each other's gigs, that we, you know, just like you know, you say elevate Springfield. That's how we elevate each other. You know, it means a lot when you see your friends and your musical, you know, friends come to your gig and support you. This is not a competition, folks. This is it's about bringing music to the masses. It's about expressing yourself. And that's why, you know, I'm not down on any kind of music. There's other music I prefer more than other music. But music is one of the great art forms. It's one of the last great art forms we have left.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's why I'm saying people need to be creating more music instead of using AI to create the music for them. Music is so important, and I'm saying AI is good. It's a good tool. I use it once in a while just to give me some ideas about different structures. Yeah. But I have never released anything that was AI-based. And I'm not going to be down on somebody if they do use AI, but I'm saying if any way possible, it's a lot like when they talk about buy local, same kind of thing. Yeah. Same kind of thing. Support live musicians, support whatever genre you like, support that genre, support the blues, support classic country, support whatever it is that you like, and continue to help these people grow, because that's important.

SPEAKER_04

No doubt about it. And come out and see Robert over at Full Genzies. So this Wednesday. There you go. Well, let's let's close out with these last couple of things, just like I always like to do. Let's give the audience a piece of advice, one on the professional side, one on the personal side to help them elevate their life or business.

SPEAKER_02

On the professional side, I say keep growing. Don't let yourself become stagnant. Don't let yourself become, you know, one-dimensional. You know, continue to improve yourself. And I would say on the personal side, the exact same thing. Because it's it's not just a personal thing, it's professionally. Because let's face it, personally affects professionally. So you have to make sure that you, you know, keep yourself level-headed and keep bringing joy to people. Just keep bringing joy to people. If there's anything I can say more than anything else, just keep bringing joy into people's life. And this is the reason I say bring joy. Happiness is what we call temporal, which means it's it only lasts for a while. Joy is within the soul. Nobody can take your joy. People can affect your happiness, but nobody can steal your joy. And I say don't let anybody steal your joy, no matter who it is. And then continue to live the best life that you can live.

SPEAKER_04

Come on. And is there anything we could do community-wide to help all of us here elevate Springfield and all the surrounding communities?

SPEAKER_02

Help each other. That is the biggest thing. Don't look down upon somebody just because they may be homeless or they may not have what you have. If you've been blessed with a lot, give a little bit from what you have. Because if you've been blessed with a lot, oh, there's a song we sing in my church because I forgot to mention that. I'm also a music minister at my church. Oh, nice. All right. Very cool. Spirit of faith church. So we sing this song when we get ready to do the offering. It's a song called You Can't Beat God's Giving. And it talks about, you know, that you can't beat, you know, what God gives you because you can't outgive God. And when God gives you something, he expects you to take a little bit of what you give and give it to other people. Like I said, remember earlier when I was talking about the cycle thing? It's all about a cycle. You know, we give, God gives to us, we give to the world. The world gives back to us, we give back to God.

SPEAKER_04

There you go. Well, Robert, man, I had a great time hearing your story, man.

SPEAKER_02

But thank you so much for having me. It's nice to have another Robert. That's right.

SPEAKER_04

That's right. So if somebody wants to learn more about you, maybe, maybe pick up one of these guys. Yeah, I have it with me.

SPEAKER_02

You can also look me up on Facebook under uh uh Lefty Robert Lefty Preacher. You can look that up. Look me up on my personal page. I have a page called Music Man Entertainment. It's called Robert Sampson's Music Man Entertainment. If you look that up on uh Facebook, that's where I usually put my schedule. And you can always get a hold of me at Yamaha Keyboardman at gmail.com. I chose a short email. Right, right, right. There you go. So if you guys want to get a hold of me, I'm always free for bookings. I also hire myself out to play with bands too. If there's like somebody needs like a keyboard player or a guitarist, can't promise you I'm gonna be what's right for your genre music. But if the fit works well, hey, I'd be glad to help anybody out the best I can. And uh I want to thank you for having me, man. Absolutely. It's been amazing. When I reached out to you, I, you know, I just felt the warmth, man. I was like, man, that's awesome. I was like, this, I said, you know, because I found out about what you did through Timo.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, I okay. Yeah, and I was like, man, I'd love to get on that show and talk a little bit. I appreciate you coming by. I'm looking forward to listening to this. I love the the heart and soul that you put into all these songs, it sounds like, and just told your story through that. And I'm I'm really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02

If if any of you get a chance to come see me out live, please do so. Come up and say hi, shake my hand, give me a hug. Hey, I'm an easy-going guy.

SPEAKER_04

There you go. Well, we're gonna let Robert get back to Elevating Springfield, or the lefty preacher out elevating Springfield. Right on. But for the rest of y'all, we'll be right back. Looking for expert tree care with hometown integrity, look no further than Sangamon Tree Service. They're your trusted local pros, delivering quality workmanship, exceptional customer service, and fair, honest pricing every time. Whether it's trimming, removal, or storm cleanup, their team brings professionalism and care to every job, big or small. Call the name your neighbor's trust, Sangman Tree Service, or visit them today at SangamintreeService.com. Sangaman Tree Service, rooted in quality, built on trust. Looking for personalized insurance with hometown care, David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agent's here to help you protect what matters most: your family, your home, and your dreams. Whether it's auto, home, life, business, David and his team are proud to serve the Springfield community with trusted advice and reliable coverage. Local service, real relationships, peace of mind. Call today or stop by their office. They can build your dream protection plan together. Call 217-726-6343. Well, thank you for joining us today, everybody. Appreciate you making us a part of your day. Hey, don't forget while you're out on social, check ours out. You can check my personal one out at RobertFarrell at everywhere. Check out those Elevate Springfield pages, those big dog business coaching pages as well. Check us out over on YouTube. Give us a subscribe, give us a like or a follow on any of those channels. We would certainly appreciate it. So, hey, take what you learned today. You bring the discipline and follow through and together. That's right, y'all. We're gonna elevate Springfield. Be great.

SPEAKER_00

When I first walked into Shudokong Karate Club, I was just looking for a way to get stronger. But what I found was so much more. Here we train in traditional karate, the real stuff. Passed down through generations. Every punch, every kata has purpose. I've learned self discipline, confidence, and how to protect myself. Not just in class, but in real life. It's not about being aggressive, it's about being prepared. This is more than a club, it's a way of life. Join us at Shudo Khan. Traditional, powerful, real.