About Me

Hello! My name is Alan Shephard.

My journey helping aspiring music artists began in 2009, while volunteering in a teen club in Vermont. A lot of great high school and college bands played at the club that most people will never hear of.

At that same time I started working for the local AM radio station, so I decided I would put some of those great bands on the air so others could hear them. The indie pop/rock show, "Bennington Rocks", was born, co-hosted by the teen club owner Michael LaChant.

As time went on, I also started playing the great talent being heard singing in their bedrooms on MySpace Karaoke. The top performer, Felix Truvere, happened to be a Country singer, so my show began the migration to playing country artists.

In 2010, the "Country Dreams" radio show first aired, co-hosted by a great singer/songwriter I found on Tunesmith.net, Ronnie Lee Hurst. We focused on playing aspiring indie artists, right alongside the big stars, and yesterdays legends, all in one show. We played music from all over the world, syndicated on 25 stations.

ICoMA President Al Shephard, Trailer Choirs Vincent "Big Vinny" Hickerson, singer/songwriter Jillian Kohr, and Trailer Choirs Marc "Butter" Fortney, at the 2014 ICoMA Awards nominee announcement.

I felt I wanted to do more though, so in 2011 I founded the Independent Country Music Association (ICoMA), to help artists, songwriters, studios, managers, labels, etc., better find each other.

In 2012, I moved to Nashville to make more connections to share with ICoMA members. We started doing annual awards shows to acknowledge the great unrecognized talent I was finding.

Then life got in the way, and personal issues forced me to stop my radio show in 2013, and sell ICoMA in 2014.

Fast forward to 2025. I'm back, and starting to resurrect what once was, and will soon be again. I hope you'll check out the "Services" page to see what I'm currently offering, and come by often to see the new things being added.