By Lauren Stepp
Marshall-based artist Sheila Kay Adams—a seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller and musician—has been named a 2026 Fellow by United States Artists. She joins a national cohort of 50 artists from 21 states selected for their creative contributions across 10 disciplines. Each Fellow receives an unrestricted $50,000 award.
Sheila Kay Adams
While the fellowship places Adams on a national stage, the roots of her work remain firmly planted in the Sodom Laurel community, where ballad singing has long been passed down through family and community memory. “I can’t remember a time in my life when my world was without the music and singing of my older family members,” she says.
One early moment still stands out. When Adams was five years old, she heard her cousin Dillard Chandler sing “Soldier Traveling from the North” after a day of work in the tobacco fields. “Right at dusky dark, while the lightning bugs were putting on their show, Dillard began to sing,” she recalls. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The sound of his lone voice rising into the gathering dark lit a fire in my heart and soul that still burns just as bright today.”
Growing up, Adams learned songs “knee-to-knee,” sitting face-to-face with relatives who sang a verse for her to repeat back until the song was fully memorized. At the time, she did not grasp the role she would one day play in carrying the tradition forward.
“During the learning years, I had no idea that I would one day become in part responsible for the survival of these love songs,” she says. “I didn’t even understand the meaning of some of the songs, but I understood the feeling.”
Adams began performing publicly as a teenager and later left her career as a public school teacher in Madison County to devote herself fully to sharing her family’s songs and stories. She has since performed at festivals, workshops and cultural events throughout the US and abroad, released albums, written books rooted in Appalachian history and worked in film as both a performer and cultural consultant.
Receiving the United States Artists Fellowship, Adams says, will allow her to focus on long-planned projects tied to preservation, teaching and community building. “Receiving this award is literally a dream come true and a life-changer for me,” she says.
Adams’ work has previously been recognized with honors including the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and the North Carolina Heritage Award. For her, however, recognition matters most when it draws attention back to the mountains.
“I have a fierce devotion to my people, my home and my community,” she says. “Mountain people do one thing well—we always come together and figure out what to do next.”
To learn more about Sheila Kay Adams, visit SheilaKayAdams.com.
