"City's heart is breaking!": Friends remember Matty Sheets

Social media eulogized blues and folk guitarist and songwriter Matty Sheets in a way that surely would have elicited one of those signature "Yeahhhhs," just like when he was hosting an open-mic night at a club or in the audience supporting other musical artists.

The stories came in a downpour.

"I was pretty awful, I'm sure, but Matty treated me like a superstar," wrote Dean Driver, who had met Sheets in 2010, when he braved his first open-mic performance. "Even then I could tell he was struggling with his health. He always struggled, but I never once heard him complain. Like many others in the community, I helped him when I could, giving him a ride or whatever he needed, but it never felt like charity. It was just giving a hand to a friend, and I'm sure he would have helped me in the same way if the tables were turned."

Others offered few but powerful words.

"The entire city's heart is breaking!" wrote performer and television writer Billy Ingram.

Sheets, a storyteller and the face behind several bands despite his debilitating multiple sclerosis, died Friday at the age of 48. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

He was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer about two weeks ago when he went into the hospital for what he thought were MS complications, according to Laura Jane Vincent, his caretaker , manager and friend. Surgery to ease digestive issues was tough on him and his body never fully recovered.

"It was not a "give-up" situation," Vincent said.

Despite his illness he always said he could not wait to wake up each day.

Groups of friends took shifts at his bedside until the very end, Vincent said.

"I want you to know that I'm happy, and I'm really proud of my life," Sheets said when he was still able, to be shared with those who knew him. "I love you. Thank you very much."

As he was passing, his friends began singing and playing for him.

"It was a very magical and impromptu moment," Vincent said. "It was one of the saddest days of my life and one of the greatest."

Afterward, his music was put on and flowers were placed on the bed, and it continued as others got there.

"You couldn't even see the hospital bed anymore, you could just see him," Vincent said.

A T-shirt with "how i met my friend, matty sheets" in lower-case type is being sold by friends to help his family.

The multi-instrumentalist is also being recognized by the North Carolina Folk Festival, which acknowledged him as a "cornerstone of the Greensboro music scene."

In his honor, the festival will rename its open mic night as "The Matty Sheets Open Mic."

Representatives of the folk festival visited him before his death to tell him in person.

"Matty's music was not just art; it was a healing force, and his impact on countless artists and the community will never be forgotten," according to a statement at his death by the festival.

"He smiled very large," Vincent said with emotion.

Sheets had planned his own service. After traveling with Vincent to the funeral of another musician a few years back, where friends and other musicians sat around singing that person's songs, he told her on the ride back home that he wanted the same type of gathering.

"We've just got to find a big enough place to do it," Vincent said.

Sheets first picked up a guitar at the age of 6, but said he felt his parents were taken for their money, because he only learned a single note in a year. He would later pick up a guitar in his teens and it would be a constant companion through tough times.

He continued recording even during his most recent hospital stay, completing the 13-song album "Stray Dogs," which is going to be released.

Condolences continue on social media.

He twice performed on The Martha Bassett Show, which airs weekly on WFDD and is taped at the Reeves Theater in Elkin. But she recalled more than his talent and called him one of her heroes.

"Matty was one of the best humans you could hope to meet, a spectacular songwriter and performer, and a true vessel for all that 's beautiful and positive about music and community," Bassett said.

He made a mark in this world, others said.

"To say that you were a light of a human who touched and inspired so many people is truly an understatement," wrote Angela Kelsick, whose friendship dates back to working together at Taco Bell in the late 1990s. " ... Greensboro and beyond was a better place because of you and the vibes you brought and all the people you inspired to shine their light."

Rae Cornwell remembered an open mic at the Flat Iron in 2012 or 2013 when Sheets introduced a first-timer.

"He's here ALL the way from Alaska," she wrote, recalling Sheets' words. "CAN you believe it? Would you please give a warm welcome to Nathaaan!"

"The room erupts with eager whoops and hollers as they always do. Matty sits down and I whisper to him, 'Is he really from Alaska?" Matty said, "No, I wanted to make him more interesting for five seconds so people give him a chance."

"Even if it wasn't his favorite style of music," Cornwell wrote, "he loved every second of it for you."

He was intentional.

"He could so easily see the good and special in people probably because he was so good and special himself," said Madison Bergstedt.

A UNCG graduate, he had talked about having been homeless at times.

"I used to sleep in the woods behind the little deli where I worked, right off Battleground," he wrote on Facebook in 2019. "All I did was write and play as much guitar as I could, when I could borrow one. "

Although he was later able to play music for a living, the songwriter and musician was forced to ask for help from his community for the cost of the blood transfusions and medicine that gave him a quality of life. And each time, the support was there.

"I don't know how I got here, other than by getting older, and treating people (everyone) with love and respect," he wrote in thanks after friends and strangers supported him in June 2019.

When his hands failed, he switched to a ukulele. He loved making music that much, Driver said.

"We have so many wonderful musicians in our community, but none of us is as generous, unassuming and authentic as Matty," Driver said. "I never heard him say a negative word about anyone and he found joy in every song he heard.... Goodbye you sweet, fragile man, and thank you for lifting up everyone around you even as your own body barely supported you . You will be missed but always remembered and cherished."

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