The Amazing Story of “Sing Me A Story”

Austin and Sara Atteberry

When you meet someone in Nashville the chances are very high that they moved here to pursue a singing or a songwriting career. Many stay on that path, but many find themselves in that music business periphery that’s not quite what they set out to do. And in that periphery, sometimes they discover what they were meant to do.

Austin Atteberry, originally from Chicago, moved to Nashville in 2008 to pursue a songwriting career. The Northwestern graduate was living in Sylvan Park and working hard to make those songwriting dreams come true when a beautiful girl named Sarah moved in next door to him.

Sara worked at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital as a Child Life Specialist. Child Life Specialists are professionally trained in understanding and meeting the unique needs of children and teens in the health care environment.

Sarah encouraged Austin to work at the hospital as a music volunteer, which he did with the same enthusiasm that he put into his songwriting.

“After working with the kids I‘d ask them to tell me a story about what ever they want. Then we’d turn it into a song, said Atteberry “Sometimes I’d come home and record an mp3 and send it back to the hospital to give to the kids and their families.

And “Sing Me A Story” was born. Eventually, Sara became Atteberry’s wife and his friends showed and interest, went through volunteer training at the hospital and got involved as well. They decided to figure out a way to give other songwriters the same opportunity to contribute and began development of the “Sing Me A Story” (SMAS) website.

Here’s how it works: Children involved with organizations serving children in need are given the opportunity to write and illustrate stories about anything they want. Those stories are then distributed to the SMAS Songwriters through the website, www.SingMeAStory.org, who view the stories, turn them into songs based on the ideas presented in the stories, record them and send them back to the children by uploading them back to the site. SMAS Jukebox Campaigns are then created for each song uploaded in an effort to raise money for the Partnering Organizations like Alive Hospice, Gilda’s Club, Project Why, Dream a Dream and many more. The money is split between those organizations and Sing Me a Story. When fans contribute to the SMAS Jukebox Campaigns, they receive the song as an Mp3 with their donation receipt.

SMAS is starting to get noticed by established writers and artists like Less Than Jake who contributed the song, Warm Chicken (Listen here), and super producer, John Feldman. The site is now filled with stories from the hearts children and songs from talented known and unknown songwriters. Check out www.SingMeAStory.org and you’ll agree that music, is good medicine.