Sheila's Recordings

At last! A one-of-a-kind anthology of Sheila's best loved stories and songs performed at the largest Storytelling Festival in the world--The International Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. This collection includes stories and songs from Sheila's debut appearance in 1997 through the next nine years as one of the Festival's "featured tellers."

Among the highlights of this recording are the very first performances of Sheila's most requested story, Little Betty and Amos, and most requested "love song, "The Four Nights Drunk." Here, too, she introduces the Festival audience to many of the relatives and friends in Sodom that gave Sheila her heartfelt and humorous view of life and music, including "Granny" Dellie Chandler Norton, Inez Chandler, cousin Jerry Adams, Lizey Leake, and her daddy Ervin Adams. You will also hear her husband, Jim Taylor, make a valiant effort to get a word in edgewise as they prepare to play a fiddle tune duet on the banjo and hammered dulcimer.

This recording is highly recommened to those who want to experience Sheila's unique brand of humor and warmth performed in front of one of the most appreciative and responsive festival audiences in the world.

Before Susan O’Connor asked me to be a ‘new voice’ featured teller at the International Storytelling Festival in 1997, I had only heard about the festival from friends – those few who had stood on that wagon in the middle of Jonesborough, Tennessee that first year back in 1972, those who became involved as the years passed and those who, after coming for the first time as part of the audience, came back year after year after year. I also knew the festival had come to be because of a vision in the heart of one special man. Jimmy Neil Smith had grown up listening to ‘stories’ told by family members and understood that like many of our oral traditions, this tradition’s remaining days were few in number and he just couldn’t stand the thoughts of it dying out. So, he began his quest to preserve it. Meanwhile, right over the mountain in Madison County, North Carolina, I had my own job of preservation going on… I was singing the traditional ballads that had been passed down from generation to generation in my family and playing the music I’d grown up listening to as a child. I’d been performing at traditional music festivals for years, and then in 1997 when the invitation came to perform at a festival where people went on stage to… well, tell stories, I have to admit I was sort of puzzled. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what to expect when I left home that Thursday afternoon, October 2nd. By Friday night, October 3rd, I was a certified, card-carrying storytelling fool. I loved every single minute I was there, and, oddly enough, the times I loved most were the times when I was not on stage… The memories I hold closest to my heart about that year in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and the years to follow, are the ones when I was listening. There really is something so very beautiful that comes to settle over the little town of Jonesborough the first weekend in October. I reckon it could almost be called magical. And all of us – coordinators, staff members, volunteers, tellers and audience become a part of that magic. What happens is something hard to explain to someone who has never been and so easily understood by everyone who has. I hope to share with you some of the magic, or whatever it is, that makes this festival so special on this recording. And as you listen, please realize you can be a part of it. All you need to do is come to Jonesborough, Tennessee the first weekend in October. And, if you run up on Jimmy Neil, please thank him for pursuing that dream which has become a blessing now to so many of us.
I truly hope, with all my heart, to see you there…

"I laughed, I cried. I felt everything I remember feeling as a child." —Dolly Parton

“...a richly told tale of honor, struggle, passion, and strength. An absolute must read!” –Book Sense Picks

“I had been waiting for this novel–and for a good Appalachian novel–for a long time. When I finished ‘My Old True Love,’ I closed the book and put it on an old trunk I use for a coffee table. I sat back, feeling full again.” –Bristol Herald Courier

“Deeply satisfying storytelling....” –Kirkus Reviews

"As passionate and eventful as an Irish ballad." —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Adams can make you laugh. And she can make you clear your throat and wipe at the corners of your eyes from emotion. This is no small thing. She has the gift." —Chattanooga Times Free Press

This heartfelt album features traditional Appalachian ballads from Madison County, NC. Those who saw the recent film, "Songcatcher," will recognize many of these selections. (Sheila was the singing coach on the film and most of the ballads sung are her versions). Rounding out the album are two banjo tunes and one of Sheila's most requested original songs, "Family Tree."

Young Hunting, Fine Sally, Awake Awake, Barbary Allen, Say Darlin' Say, Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies, My Dearest Dear, I Never Will Marry, Single Girl, Little Soldier Boy, Silk Merchant's Daughter, Jimmy Randall, Fall On My Knees, Black Jack Davy, Family Tree

This new recording brings you the music that weaves its way through the pages of Sheila's novel, My Old True Love. Traditional love songs, hymns, and fiddle tunes are all represented in a CD that's the perfect compliment to the book. As Sheila says in the introduction to the liner notes:

"Voices from my childhood are just as liable to be singing as talking. As a girl, I would close my eyes and rock back and forth, listening to the words and imagining myself there, having a part in whatever drama was taking place. I guess that’s why the songs sort of slipped naturally into the book. When the first song rolled out of my head and onto the pages, I was certain my editor would cut it. She didn’t. Whole songs are there, weaving and stitching the story and the people together from the first to the very last page. I reckon it fit because it was such a part of who I was and who they were. Though I never heard any of them sing a word or play a single tune, I know they were musicians and singers because I was told they were. And, they would’ve sung the same songs I grew up listening to: Soldier Traveling From the North, Pretty Saro, Pretty Peggy-o, My Dearest Dear. Mamma and Daddy’s cousin, Cas Wallin, would pitch every song that came out of his mouth, “Do, Mi, Sol,” beating out time as he went. He was a master of the shaped note singing of the old hymns… I remember sitting in my Uncle Byard Ray’s lap as he noted the fiddle with his left hand and let me pull the bow across the strings… “Cumberland Gap ain’t my home and I’m gonna leave ole Cumberland alone.” So, how could I write a book without the songs and music? I just couldn’t. In the book, the main character, Arty Norton, says, “It made me feel funny to think of singing songs that had been tucked away in people’s hearts that had come all the way across the ocean.” Me too, Arty, but I’m so glad they carried them here to this place I love. I can’t imagine a single day without this music and the people that kept it. Here it is, straight from the novel and from their heart and mine. I hope you enjoy it."

Also appearing on All The Other Fine Things are James Leva, Josh Goforth, and Bruce Greene all on fiddle; Carl Jones on guitar; John Doyle on guitar & bazouki; Jim Taylor, vocal & guitar; and the Christian Harmony Singers of western North Carolina.

Young Hunting / Elzig’s Farewell; Wagoner’s Lad; Drunken Hiccups; A Soldier Traveling From the North; Sacred Throne; George Booker; My Dearest Dear; Pretty Peggy-o; Idumea; Little Margaret; Pretty Saro; 8th of January / Cumberland Gap / 8th Day of January; Windham; Camp a Little While in the Wilderness

Over 30 of Sheila's classic stories from her best-selling book, Come Go Home With Me, read and brought to life as only Sheila can.

This 4 CD set is a window into the small Appalachian mountain community of Sodom, NC, peopled with characters that we can share a smile with, laugh right out loud with, or maybe even identify with. You'll meet Little Betty & Vine, who decided to take Amos out of his coffin to change his clothes, along with Inez, who causes more commotion in church than the box of snakes. You'll get to know Sheila's beloved grandfather, "Breaddaddy," and the woman she called Granny.

In these stories, Sheila does indeed invite you to go home with her. Four hours on 4 compact discs.

"Pure mountain magic." —Life Magazine

"By turns hilarious and deeply moving, always lively, Sheila's stories paint the portrait of a whole culture, from the past to the present day." —Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies

What Ever Happened to John Parrish's Boy?

New Release for 2007

My Old True Love

Sheila's debut novel

Now in Paperback!

Come Go Home With Me

Audio Book

All The Other Fine Things

My Dearest Dear

Come Go Home With Me

Live! At the International Storytelling Festival

Book