Twenty-one-year-old Tupper native Brock Gonyea, who more often than not can be spotted behind the gas station counter wearing Green Bay Packers gear, has become something of a singing sensation due to a video of him performing the song “Hello Walls,” a 1961 hit for Faron Young.

Since Gonyea posted the video to his Facebook page on Jan. 9, it has garnered more than 1.6 million views, 28,000 shares and 4,000 comments.

“It’s incredible and extremely overwhelming,” Gonyea said. “I was going through a bad breakup at the time, and the song had been on my mind, and I just sat down and learned it, right there. If you can tell in the video, you can see me looking over every now and then because I’m still reading the words.”

The song, written by Willie Nelson, is a lover’s lament. Gonyea thinks that’s part of the reason his video has gotten so much traction.

Brock Gonyea sings “Hello Walls” in a video he posted on his Facebook page in January.

“I just think the passion behind it, how I was just feeling at the time, going through the breakup — I think all of that together made for a perfect storm,” he said.

The thousands of commenters on Gonyea’s video mostly skew country-western.

“Come to Oklahoma. It’s cowboy country,” one commenter writes. Another exhorts, “Son you have a future here and you need to get sponsors n head to Nashville.”

“The song I released was a country song, but I’m not necessarily a country artist,” Gonyea said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love country, but I also love all of it. I love folk, punk rock. I love everything. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Nirvana.”

Gonyea has both vocal and stylistic range. At last month’s Tupper Lake’s Got Talent show, he performed a note-climbing rendition of “Unchained Melody.” This past week he uploaded a folky Tim Buckley song to his Facebook page. As a kid, he says, he had a sort of awakening listening to AC/DC.

But there was something in his take on Nelson’s twangy classic that resonated. Since the “Hello Walls” video was posted, Gonyea has been contacted by numerous admirers, would-be advisers, producers and record label executives.

“I’ve heard from so many people,” Gonyea said. “From record labels, CEOs, Nashville and music producers in Ireland who have won Grammys. This one guy won a Grammy for producing a Stevie Wonder record. Crazy, ridiculous people have gotten a hold of me just through that video.”

Even the uncle of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has reached out to Gonyea to offer advice and support.

Though this most recent bit of success may be new to Gonyea, music is old hat to him and his family.

“The Gonyea side of my family is deeply rooted in music,” he said. “My grandfather played in country-western bands all over the North Country. My uncle Rick played all over the place, too. He was a really impressive country-western singer and guitar player. I inherited his guitar that he bought in the 1970s. But my father probably has the coolest story of them all.”

After graduating high school, Brock’s father Bruce Gonyea went to work at a plywood manufacturer in Tupper Lake. One evening, while working overtime to clean out a 10-foot clipper — a sort of wood veneer peeling machine — he lost four fingers on his left hand when two co-workers turned the machine on without seeing him.

“He restrung the guitar backwards and relearned how to play backwards,” Gonyea said.

“That to me, if I experienced anything like that, I would’ve just thrown my hands up in the air and quit.”

Though Gonyea’s father set a powerful example of persistence, Bruce Gonyea admits his son has an innate drive and talent.

“When he was just a little kid, I’d sit in my office playing and singing, and he’d listen in and sing along and say he wanted to play guitar, too,” he said. “But he really taught himself how to play, and by the time he was 10 or 11, he was better than most of us.”

While a senior at Tupper Lake High School, having completed all of the credits he would need to graduate, Gonyea approached music teacher Liz Cordes about taking an open-ended independent class where students are encouraged to explore music on their own terms.

“That he sought me out for this independent music study really speaks volumes to the kind of drive he has,” Cordes said.

“We had a sort of shortage of space,” she added. “So Brock would sit out in the hallway and work on his range and guitar playing. I think kids would purposely sign out of class when they knew he was playing and take the long way around to the bathroom just so they could watch him singing in the hall.”

His co-workers at the Wawbeek Quick Stop also see something special in Gonyea.

“I’ve known Brock since I was a kid,” Josh Scranton said. “We call him the golden child.”

With summer approaching and a larger number of gigs ahead of him, Gonyea has already reduced his hours at the gas station, opting to focus on music. Scranton doesn’t seem to mind.

“You don’t want to get stuck at Wawbeek,” he said. “He’s got more talent than punching people out at the register.”

Gonyea’s next show will be Friday, May 5 at his sister’s diner, Ohana’s, 284 Park St., Tupper Lake.