Sheila Andrews

Sheila Andrews
Sheila Andrews on the cover of her album Lovesick
Background information
Born	April 10, 1953 Athens, Alabama
Died	December 26, 1984 (aged 30–31) Akron, Ohio
Genres	Country
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1970s–1984
Labels	Ovation
Associated acts	Joe Sun

Sheila Marlene Andrews (1953 – December 26, 1984) was an American country music singer. Signed to the Ovation label, she recorded three studio albums in her career and released several singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs including "It Don't Get Better Than This", her highest charting single.

Sheila Marlene Alldredge was born in Athens, Alabama in 1953 to James and Willie Alldredge. She had two brothers named Frank and Michael. Andrews father traveled to Ohio from Alabama to work in rubber plants and was a truck driver when he worked in Alabama. Eventually the family moved to Akron, Ohio permanently. When Andrews was 16 she got married. They had four children and later divorced.

While living in Ohio, Andrews got a job selling carpeting over the phone for CarpetTown. Later when she was 23 she began singing in a nightclub. Her second husband "discovered" her and urged her to move to Nashville and meet producer Brien Fisher of Ovation Records and begin a recording career.

Andrews sang in a soulful type voice; she told the Milwaukee Journal after moving to Nashville, "When I first came down here from Akron and met different people who listened to my tape they all said , 'You sound so different'. Later on they said it was good, but at the time it made me feel really bad". One of the reasons for Andrews’ unique voice was a result of surgery that removed a tumor from her thyroid. Andrews revealed that after the surgery, "They didn't tell me I wasn't supposed to sing or talk loud for a year. I started singing after the operation and it lowered on me. It used to be three or four octaves higher. Now when I talk everyone thinks I have a cold."

Andrews also said during another interview, that after the surgery, "I started singing in a nightclub shortly after the operation and that's when my voice began to lower and lower on me. I should have been furious with that careless doctor but how can I when he is a lot responsible for the upturn of my career!"

In 1978, Andrews signed with the Ovation Records label. The same year Andrews released her debut album, Love Me Like a Woman, under Fisher's production. The album's first single was the Layng Martine, Jr. penned "Too Fast for Rapid City" which reached No. 88 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Its follow-up and title track "Love Me like a Woman" failed to chart. The album's third and final single "I Gotta Get Back the Feeling" also peaked at No. 88.