Sammy Qadan woke up on Sept. 15, 2022, hung over “like a snake on a rail.” He did not know where in Natchez he had been the previous night, nor where he might have left his hat or boots. He had no recollection of how he had made it home until the woman in his bed put the pieces together for him.
His head throbbed as though he had been savagely assaulted with a boat paddle. Qadan looked in the mirror; the human wreck in the reflection balefully glared back at him. His hair was wild and disheveled, his eyes bloodshot apertures through which he could barely make out his surroundings. What had started as one more drinking bout with two buddies to see who could overindulge the longest had predictably descended into yet another Hieronymous Bosch alcoholic hellscape—a total blackout.
Qadan took stock of the utterly degraded image in the mirror and knew he’d had enough.
The musician grew up 15 miles south of Natchez in Sibley, Miss., a community known for being the site of the Adams County dump. The son of a Catholic mother and an “off the boat” Muslim father, Qadan’s young life was drenched in family loss and grief. His grandmother suffered with leukemia for years before passing, and his uncle, Sam Davis—for whom Qadan was named—died in an 18-wheeler wreck, introducing Qadan to feelings of sadness at an early age.
“I was born into a mourning, religiously conflicted family, with a cemetery 20 yards from our screen door,” Qadan told the Mississippi Free Press.
In addition to performing with Sullivan’s Hollow, Sammy Qadan (pictured) plans to release solo tracks on music-streaming platforms this year. Photo courtesy Sullian’s Hollow
Escape from the pervasive melancholy of the house came from listening to music, a subversive act that required Qadan to smuggle the CDs he purchased into his home and listen to them surreptitiously. At 18 years old, Qadan took up the guitar, though “sucked at it for a really long time,” he said.
Armed with a musical medium through which to channel his anger and anguish,