Sometimes I'm afraid I'm dreaming," says Asylum Records artist Kevin Sharp. "Maybe this is heaven." He ought to know; he's been through hell.

Sharp is a cancer survivor who was given no chance of survival five years ago. His bald head is a mute reminder of the intense radiation and chemotherapy his body has endured. His spiritual outlook, angelic composure and gentle nature come from a soul that's been tested by torture.

Sharp, now 25, was staring death in the face as a boy of 18. Today, he has the direct candor and disarming honesty of someone who has nothing to lose, everything to win and a burning desire to communicate. His remarkable tale climaxes with the release of his Asylum Records debut album, Measure Of A Man.

In recent years, Nashville music folks have watched song after song from their coffers cross over to become blockbuster R&B hits -- All-4-One's "I Swear" and "I Can Love You Like That," Gerald Levert's "She'd Give Anything" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" all began life as country-music favorites. For months, performers in Music City have been watching the R&B hit parade to find the perfect "reverse crossover" number. When the Tony Rich Project soared to the top of the charts with "Nobody Knows" earlier this year, they knew they'd found it. Everyone scrambled to be the first in country music to cover the tune. Kevin Sharp has come up the winner.

"Nobody had to talk me into that one," Sharp says with a grin. "I knew the minute I heard it that it was a hit. And I'm not ashamed to admit it: I've always loved to sing covers and make them my own.

"I love all kinds of music, but somehow I've always drifted toward country. As a kid, the first record I ever bought was Glen Campbell's 'Rhinestone Cowboy.' I would set up a little stage in my room, make up invitations and invite my parents in to watch me put on a little show, lip synching or singing along with the tape. I invited my brothers and sisters, too, but they never came. Then I liked John Denver. He was a really hot ticket in the '70s. After that, it was Kenny Rogers and Olivia Newton-John. Whatever was big on country radio, that's what I was singing."

Born in 1970, Sharp was raised in a family of seven brothers and sisters and numerous foster children. At one point there were 14 people living in his parent's Christian household. Kevin was on stage by age 3, when the Sharps formed a family musical unit to perform at church functions. He was 7 when they moved from rural Northern California to Weiser, Idaho, the home of the National Fiddle Festival.

"Music has always been the most powerful thing in my life," says Sharp. "It's as important to me as breathing."

He was auditioning for musicals by age 10; by the time he was in junior high, choral groups and choirs were part of his weekly routine. The family moved to the Sacramento area when he was 15. Kevin's superior athletic ability helped him make friends quickly and overcome the adjustments of being a "country kid" moving to the city.

Throughout high school he was a football star, a wrestler and a weight lifter who amused his friends by singing songs while bench-pressing 200 pounds. He had big dreams of going to college on a football scholarship and starring on the musical stage. Sharp joined a light-opera company in Sacramento to perform in regional productions of Broadway shows in 1989.

That was when he began experiencing bouts of mysterious fatigue and severe spasms of pain in his left leg and lower back. By the time he was a senior in high school there were days when he couldn't walk or get out of bed. Doctors told him he was suffering from a sports injury.

Sharp knew better: "At one point I told them I thought I had cancer. They told me it was all in my head."

He couldn't breathe. He dropped 20 pounds. His body was shutting down. Sharp quit the theater company but managed to graduate from high school. That August he was diagnosed with bone cancer that had spread to his lungs. He refused to let them amputate his leg; his prognosis was dire.

Sharp turned 19 uncertain whether he'd ever see age 20. The Make-A-Wish Foundation asked him for his heart's desire. He asked to meet the brilliant Los Angeles producer/composer/performer David Foster. "Anything that ever touched me he had something to do with -- he either produced it, arranged it or performed it.

"He told me later that he went back and forth with the decision to meet me. He didn't want to get attached to someone he might lose. On the other hand, I think he was shocked that somebody my age had asked to meet him as a dying wish. I went to his house. I was just overwhelmed by how he opened up his heart.

"He said, 'Are you going to die?' I said, 'I don't know; chances are that I will."' The friendship that Foster and Sharp established was to sustain the youngster through the years of agony that followed.

Two months after meeting Foster, Sharp learned that months of high-intensity chemotherapy and radiation had failed. Death seemed certain.

"I was angry at the world. I was mad at God. I thought I was being punished," he says.

Sharp was subjected to a series of operations to treat his badly damaged bones, then underwent a second dose of dangerous radiation with an experimental drug. In 1991 Sharp went into remission, to his own and everyone else's surprise.

But through it all, there was music.

"It was so healing. Just to be around it was like an energy pill. I'd prepared to die for so long that I didn't know how to live -- I was more scared of living than I was of dying. It was music that brought me back." He began performing a tune called "Please Don't Be Scared" for other kids in the cancer ward, then went out to face the world.

In 1993 Sharp became the lead singer in the Great America theme park in California, pushing his group to do more and more country as he gained confidence. He built his career by performing at high schools, private parties and restaurants. He started a singing telegram business. He sang at a mortuary for funerals. He submitted his tape to TNN's "You Can Be a Star" and was invited to audition. Finally, he turned to his old friend Foster for advice.

"He agreed to listen to a tape I had and took me for a ride in his car. Later, I found out that he'd planned to let me down easy and tell me to go home. But after he heard the first song, he got very emotional. I could tell he was relieved. He was so afraid that he was going to have to tell me he didn't like it. He hugged me."

Although he had few country contacts, Foster said he'd do what he could.

In the meantime, Sharp marketed another CD titled You Can Count On Me, starred in a Biblical musical called "Joshua," appeared on its cast album and pitched his tape to record labels everywhere.

In 1995 143 Records A&R executive Jaymes Foster-Levy heard the tape her brother David Foster had given her in a box of cassettes. She played it for country producer Chris Farren, noted for his work with Boy Howdy and Jeffrey Steele. Farren flipped. Ironically, his co-written "If I Were You," a hit for Collin Raye, was Sharp's favorite song at the time.

"David flew me into Los Angeles to meet him. Chris was up front and honest. He said, 'Look, I don't know what's going to come of this. If something does, great; but if not, don't give up.' He happened to have a song called 'The Strength To Love' and I told him I'd love to sing it. He took me into the studio and its was like magic." That tune appears on Measure Of A Man.

Three months later, David Foster organized a showcase for Asylum's Kyle Lehning that clinched a recording contract.

"Today, I appreciate everything in life so much more than ever," the singer reflects. "Even the smallest things are beautiful to me. I think I'm a better person, a better Christian, because of what I've been through. Music has made a difference every day of my life. Whenever I needed strength, there was always a song.

"I want to do that for someone else. I want to heal the world, I guess. I'd just like somebody to feel, 'That song by that bald guy really moved me, really helped me.' I want to touch as many lives as I can. Because I will always sing."