ABOUT

In the good times and the bad, Adam Sherman never lost his spark –- for songwriting, for collaborating, or for bringing people together through music.  

The veteran musician and lyricist, who first made his name in the Boston music scene nearly 50 years ago, has bridged the decades with a straight-line of creativity, a calm demeanor, and a cool factor that extends beyond casual. From his early days in the fertile New England music scene with bands like Private Lightning and The Souls to his modern-day solo output and guitarwork for the resurrected Nervous Eaters, the sharply-dressed Sherman has been a steady figure in the northeast, with six nominations for various Boston Music Awards and the ability to play any stage, any where. 

Now, Sherman readies a new EP, Nowhere But Here, on March 28 via Hadden Road Music. Led by the singles “Pure As Yours” and “Gratitude” and featuring harmony vocals by fellow scene icon Robin Lane, the record gets the proper release party treatment at Club Passim on March 29, the day after the EP hits the streams and brick-and-mortar CD racks.  

But to understand Sherman’s creative headspace in 2025, one must rewind the story back to the start. 

Sherman first learned to play guitar when he was eight years old after seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon after that historic moment in pop culture, he had his first electric guitar, learning songs by the British Invasion rock groups and folk artists like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. When high school began, the New York native turned out to be the only kid willing to sing in a band, so he quickly, as a teenager with a hunger for music and the arts, became accustomed to singing on stage and performing in public. 

A lifelong passion would form, and Sherman would go on to play and sing as much as he could. Soon the confines of suburban life led him to leave New York for Boston’s vibrant music scene, and in 1980 co-founded the rock band Private Lightning, leading to a recording contract with A&M Records. Private Lightning would produce two hit singles, “Physical Speed” and “Song of the Kite.” During this period, Sherman began to study with Boston voice teacher Merrill Shea, working with him for three years to develop his confidence and approach. 

After Private Lightning split, he formed The Souls to put the focus back on his songwriting. The band’s rock anthem “Shoot for the Moon” was nominated for a Boston Music Award for Best Song.

After eight years of playing clubs with The Souls, Sherman decided it was time for a break from the music business and began to focus on his other love of painting. While painting, he listened to jazz and slowly began to wonder if he could sing jazz standards, gravitating to the work of Chet Baker and experimenting with various vocal styles. In 2001, he wrote the song “January, February” with a jazzy, Baker-inspired feel, and the composition was brought to visual life via a Jeff Hudson music video. Around this time, Sherman released his first critically acclaimed solo album in Songbird. 

An interest in jazz singing inspired him to attend a jazz vocal master class led by sought-after performer and teacher Shawnn Montiero, who taught him invaluable lessons about performing and finding his own voice. Sherman felt he had gained enough knowledge to share with young musicians and started teaching voice at his own studio, Voice Lessons Cambridge, where he has been teaching for the past 18 years.

Through the years, rock and roll never vacated Sherman’s spaces, and in 2018 he began writing songs that would become his sophomore solo album River of Dreams. He formed the Adam Sherman Band and released the album with a celebratory performance at the Cloud Club in Boston.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Sherman found that rather than being shut down creatively, he was inspired to write new music. “Hope,” written during the first days of lockdown, is a plea for strength during dark days. “Justice Lies” is a response to the murder of George Floyd. Both songs formed the core of Sherman’s third solo album, 2021’s Triangle Sky. As the pandemic wore on a small group of musicians began to meet socially on Zoom. The desire to make music together led to the formation of Back Porch Carousel, a collective that would host monthly livestream shows on Facebook and go on to record and release five singles, all completed remotely, that can still be heard on all major streaming services.

With a new EP on the horizon, as well as a successful Sunday matinee monthly residency at The Plough & Stars in Cambridge, Sherman’s spark shows no signs of fading. Creativity keeps him going, and from those first transformative moments hearing The Beatles to now releasing his most buoyant and self-assured batch of songs more than 60 years later, the one constant in Sherman’s life has been music. It’s at the core of his spark, still burning bright.