SLIPPERY ROCK — Singer-guitarist Mary Lou Scherder recently released her first CD, “Charlie’s Daughter,” lined up appearances at various locations in Butler County and elsewhere, and has heard her song, “Little Bit of Wine,” on WYEP 91.3 FM in Pittsburgh and on other local radio stations.

Not bad for a single mother of two, who until four years ago had never played a guitar, wrote a song or read music.

A fiscal assistant for the Slippery Rock University athletics department, Scherder said her blossoming country music career began with an empty house.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Scherder. “But I was a single mom whose children had moved out. I had empty nest syndrome. I wanted to learn something new. I had a lot of time on my hands but not a lot of money.”

She said she bought a secondhand guitar and taught herself to play by watching You Tube lessons.

Scherder said she took some guitar lessons but quit when she felt she didn’t know enough to benefit from the sessions.

Instead, she made up for her lack of experience through sheer repetition.

“I practiced seven hours a day, four days a week until I caught up,” she said.

“I can read guitar tabs but I am not a trained musician,” she added.

Still, she learned enough to participate in open stage nights in her hometown of Slippery Rock where the audience encouraged her to take the next step and begin writing her own songs.

“It seemed the natural thing to do,” Scherder said.

“Wasn’t it Willie Nelson who said, ‘A song is just three chords and a story’?”

“I found song writing to be pretty easy. A life experience hits, and I would think, ‘That would be good song.’”

Soon she had enough for an album.

“John Vento, who’s the lead singer of two bands in Pittsburgh heard me in July 2015 at Little Italy Days in Bloomfield. He liked my songs and wanted to hear more of them,” she said.

So Vento arranged for her to record.

She found recording different from performing live.

“On a record, you will do the music part first, so you are strumming along and sort of singing along in your head. And then you are singing along to the music you have recorded,” she said.

However hard it may have been, she was good enough for “Little Bit of Wine” to air on WYEP’s Rollin’ and Tumblin’ show Sept. 10.

Rob O’Friel, the host of the show, said, “On Rollin’ and Tumblin’ we like our listeners to be able to hear some of the great local musicians that play the blues, and ‘Little Bit Of Wine’ was selected because it really just has a great Saturday night kind of feel to it.

“It’s an up-tempo tune that gives the show a country-blues-shuffle flavor that’s a little different from the straight-ahead guitar driven songs that make up much of the playlist,” said O’Friel. “And Mary Lou’s singing makes you feel like you’re at an old-time country dance having a good old time on the weekend.”

Scherder said her CD’s title, “Charlie’s Daughter,” was to honor her father, the late Charles Alexander Scherder, who raised cattle on a 53-acre farm outside Chicora.

“Growing up I listened to Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. And from my older sister, Elton John, anything contemporary at that time,” she said.

Scherder performs live throughout the Pittsburgh area.

She will be at the Baltimore House in Pleasant Hills tonight and at JB’s Pub in Russelton Oct. 21.

Her CD is available at iTunes and at Sloane’s Guitar Emporium, 1768 N. Main St. Extension.