J.R. Sandoval was feeling a little lonely when he moved to New Mexico to attend graduate school a few years back.
So he picked up a guitar his dad gave him and Googled the chords for Texas country singer Pat Green’s “Don’t Break My Heart Again.”
Then he learned to play a Cody Canada song; his time attending the University of Texas at El Paso exposed him to the popular Red Dirt Texas country and he was smitten with it.
He learned more songs and then started goofing around on the guitar, crafting a melody that sounded plausible. Then he added some lyrics and before he knew it, the Canyon del Oro High School alumnus had written his first song.
And he inadvertently set himself on a path that on Sunday, June 9, will put him in the company of some of Tucson’s finest country music songwriters.
“I am extremely pumped up to be a part of the” Arizona Originals songwriting showcase, he said. “I get to share the stage with great songwriters, some of which have been very helpful in guiding me along this amazing adventure.”
Sandoval is one of seven newcomers on the Arizona Originals lineup, which includes veterans Billy Shaw Jr., Brooke Kelsey and Caiden Brewer. The show at the Maverick Live Country Club gives songwriters a forum for introducing original songs and telling the stories behind them.
He landed there after introducing himself to Arizona Originals founder and organizer Jessica Northey-Shaw, who said she admired Sandoval’s “authenticity and desire” to find a place in Tucson’s burgeoning country music scene.
“I hadn’t even heard him sing yet when he came to one of (her husband) Billy’s gigs,” Northey-Shaw recalled. “I asked Billy to let J.R. get on stage and sing a song with our band. I knew whatever sound came out of his mouth I was going to love because I was already a fan. The fact that he has an amazing voice was a bonus.”
Sandoval will likely be one of the least experienced performers on Sunday’s lineup. By his timetable, he’s been doing music with a purpose for just five years, including pretty much exclusively since he moved back to Tucson from New Mexico in late 2017. It took him awhile to figure out how to get gigs and get his name out there, something he is still working on with the advice of pros like Shaw, Northey-Shaw and the Safford band The Cole Trains.
“I’m starting to get a little more momentum. I’m starting to understand how the business works,” said Sandoval, 30. “I really had to push myself to start getting gigs.”
Being a singer-songwriter is a far cry from what Sandoval set out to do when he left Tucson in 2010 to study kinesiology at UTEP. The Texas native who grew up in Tucson spent two years in San Marcos, Texas, after college before enrolling in the sports management graduate program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
His studies took him back to San Marcos in 2016 to intern a few months with the Texas State University football program’s recruiting office.
“I’ve always been an athlete and had a keen eye for spotting talent,” said the former CDO baseball player who is still focused on fitness; he works out most days and plays pickup basketball every Tuesday with the same group of friends that he played with after high school.
But when he returned to Albuquerque after his internship, he met a girl.
The girl that would change the direction of his life.
The girl that would break his heart and be the inspiration for every sad song he’s written since.
She’s the main character in his heartbreaker “Gone Crazy” and she chooses the sun and surf over him in “Costa Rica Can” — two songs he will likely play on Sunday.
“I’m a little more traditional. I tend to write more about heartbreaks, but I’m trying to break out of that,” he said.
He’s inching in that direction a bit, drawing uptempo inspiration from the late Keith Whitley and Merle Haggard, and his other faves David Alan Coe, the Highwaymen and a host of Texas Red Dirt country artists.
“Texas country plays a big role for me,” he said. “I enjoy the fact that Texas country and Red Dirt country keep the country part in country music. They keep the pop out of it.”
His music includes roles for steel guitar and fiddles, although he hasn’t had much experience playing with a full band. He mostly plays solo acoustic, including a gig last month in Las Cruces for a full house at the popular Ice Box Brewery.
Closer to home, he’s played at Marana’s The Station and the town’s country bar Circle S Saloon. He also plays a monthly show for residents of two local assisted living facilities.
“I love it because it’s almost like being at a campfire, being in circle and playing for friends,” he said of those shows.
In the fall, Sandoval plans to move back to Texas and give the Austin music scene a shot.
“I hope to take it to Austin and see if it will work out there,” he said. “I feel like my songs have potential to reach particular audiences. And I enjoy performing and being up there and playing for three hours. I can get up there and sing for hours and it doesn’t feel like it at all.”
