As a singer/songwriter, Sheryl Paige has followed an unusual path, which began with a chance discovery in Costa Mesa California. As a young girl, Sheryl and her mother were leaving her Aunts apartment when they found an acoustic guitar that had been spray painted black and tossed in a dumpster outside the apartment building. Sheryls mother rescued the guitar, stripped it down to bare wood, refinished it, then proceeded to teach Sheryl the few chords and strums she knew. Sheryl quickly mastered what her
mother taught her and simply couldnt stop playing the guitar. Before long she was learning songs by ear, and writing her own music. She was a shy girl, reluctant to perform in front of others, and her mother would have to secretly hold the phone up to Sheryls bedroom door so family and friends could hear Sheryls playing. With encouragement and training from music teachers, her mother, and her grandmother (a former vaudeville star), Sheryl began performing at school, church and community functions through her teens and college years.
Her best college girlfriends believed in her songs so much that they paid for Sheryls first demo recording, during which she met her future husband. That recording got the attention of executives at Maranatha! Music and they brought Sheryl in to record for their release Back to the Rock II. She co-wrote songs with the band Malcolm and the Mirrors, and formed her own band Liaison for performances in Southern California and for tours in the UK. Soon Sheryls marriage and family life along with her successes in the business world limited her performances to a few short tours a year. But Sheryl found that her creative drive could not be quelled and new songs just kept coming. Over the last 15 years she has toured in the US, UK and the Czech Republic, shes independently released four recordings and produced and cohosted a local arts television show called Session 31 that featured performing songwriters and focused on their creative process.
In 1998 Sheryl left the corporate world and went into business for herself so she would have the flexibility she needed to pursue opportunities presented to her in her music career. Since then she has received awards for both her songwriting and performance. Most recently, she was a finalist in the Suwanee Springfest Singer/Songwriter competition, finalist in the 2006 South Florida Folk Festival Songwriter competition, took 2nd place for Country in the 2005 Pacific Songwriting Competition, was a finalist for songwriter of the year in the 2005 Pacific Songwriting Competition, and was awarded an
Artist Enhancement Grant by the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Currently, Sheryl is working on writing and recording songs for her next CD.
A bit of the shy girl still remains at the core of Sheryls performances. A self-confessed non-diva, Sheryl forges a personal connection with her audiences, as if they are sitting together in the living room, laughing and talking over a cup of coffee. Sheryls style can be best described as acoustic guitar based music that draws elements from folk, rock, country, classical
and jazz, and is filled with pop-like musical and lyrical hooks that make for very memorable songs. Her voice is intimate, earthy and soulful.
