TLDR: Sheila Aldridge joined The Lawrence Welk Show in 1977 after a four-audition campaign with her sister Sherry and spent five years as the more animated, soprano half of the Aldridge Sisters and Otwell Twins quartet.
After the show she opened for Bob Hope and George Burns, co-wrote a country hit, appeared in television and film, and built a musical partnership with her second husband Chris Costa in Nashville.
She is 69 years old as of 2025, believed to be living privately in the Nashville area, and recovered from a health scare in 2024.
When Sheila Aldridge and her sister Sherry bought balcony tickets to a Lawrence Welk concert in Nashville in the spring of 1977, they came prepared. They had convinced their boyfriends to drive them. They had a plan for the intermission. And when they got in front of Welk, they sang.
He liked what he heard. He told them there were no openings. They flew to Los Angeles a week later and sang “Fernando” for him anyway.
Still no openings. They came back again. And again. Four auditions before the call finally came through.
That level of persistence, at 20 years old, tells you something about Sheila Aldridge that five years of weekly television would confirm.
Born in Knoxville, Raised in North Carolina
Sheila Aldridge was born on July 18, 1956, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the younger daughter of Talton Wade Aldridge and Jacqueline Vivian Goins Aldridge.
Her parents had deep North Carolina roots — Talton from Linville, Jacqueline from Avery County — and the family maintained strong ties to both states throughout her childhood.
Whether you describe her as a Tennessee girl or a North Carolina girl, the cultural landscape is the same: Appalachian, church-centered, and musical from the ground up.
She and her sister Sherry, five years her senior, began singing in church choirs before moving into holiday pageants, high school plays, and local community theater.
The theater background in particular shaped something in Sheila that would become her professional signature — an expressive, physically engaged performance style that translated unusually well to a television close-up.
In the mid-1970s, both sisters took jobs as flight attendants while pursuing their music on the side. It was a practical arrangement that also, unintentionally, prepared them for exactly the kind of professional environment Lawrence Welk ran: punctual, polished, composed under pressure, and always on.
The Audition That Almost Didn’t Happen Four Times
The Nashville concert was the opening. The Los Angeles trips, funded by local singing gigs, were the follow-through. By the time the sisters auditioned for the fourth time, the production staff was already expecting them.
The vacancy that finally opened the door was the departure of Tanya Welk, Lawrence Welk Jr.’s wife, in late 1977.
The sisters debuted on the opening show of the 1977-78 season performing “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” Welk described the performance in his 1979 book This I Believe as “beautiful, every note refined and pure with perfect harmony and rendition truly fine.”
They were signed as regulars almost immediately.
Lawrence Welk then made a production decision that would define the next five years of Sheila’s career. He paired the Aldridge Sisters with the Otwell Twins, Roger and David, from Tulia, Texas, forming a quartet that balanced two sets of siblings across a full harmonic range.
The combination worked on every level: visually, harmonically, and in terms of audience appeal.
The Animated Half of the Quartet
Within the quartet, the sisters occupied distinct roles.
Sherry was the anchor — steady, precise, mid-range. Sheila was the spark.
Her soprano voice handled the melodic leads on contemporary and country-pop material, and her stage presence was noticeably more animated than her sister’s.
Television directors of the era favored performers who could sustain energy in close-up, and Sheila became the natural choice for comedic vignettes and musical skits that required a degree of character acting.
A standout moment came in a 1981 Valentine’s Day episode when the Otwell Twins were unavailable and the sisters performed “I Still Get That Honeymoon Feeling” as a duo, showcasing a playful chemistry that reminded viewers the act worked with or without the quartet format.
The quartet’s repertoire ranged widely — “Hot Diggity,” “Doin’ What Comes Naturally,” “Love Is a Rose,” country standards, and the kind of contemporary pop the show was absorbing in its final syndication years.
On a September 1978 episode themed around the music of Perry Como and hosted by Mary Lou Metzger, the quartet performed “Catch a Falling Star” — a performance that fans have cited for decades as one of their most polished appearances.
They stayed through the show’s final episode in 1982, appearing in every season of the syndication era and becoming one of the most recognized acts of the Musical Family’s later years.
A Songwriter, an Actress, and a Second Act
When the show ended, Sheila didn’t stop. She and Sherry opened for Bob Hope and George Burns, performed at casino resorts in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Lake Tahoe, appeared on Dinah Shore and Hee Haw, and toured the Welk alumni circuit.
The Musical Family didn’t disband so much as disperse into a decade of reunion tours and nostalgia shows.
But Sheila was also building something new. She pursued acting, picking up guest spots on The New Mike Hammer and the TBS series Down to Earth in 1984, and a film appearance in Bed and Breakfast.
More significantly, she moved into songwriting.
In 1989 she received a composer credit for “If I Ever Go Crazy,” a country music video recorded by The Shooters that circulated in Welk circles as a genuine hit.
For a performer who had spent her twenties inside the highly structured Welk format, the songwriting credit was a meaningful assertion of her own creative voice.
She had been briefly married to comedian Roger Behr around 1980, but that marriage ended in divorce. By the late 1990s she had relocated to Nashville and found both a new partner and a new musical direction.
Chris Costa and Nashville
Sheila married singer-songwriter and keyboardist Chris Costa in 1998. She described Nashville as “the songwriting center of the world” in a reminiscence segment that year, and Costa became the collaborator who allowed her to develop beyond the Welk-era framework.
They performed as a husband-and-wife duo in the Nashville area, and a 1998 duet of Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” captured something in Sheila’s voice that the structured Champagne Music format had never quite allowed — emotional directness, vulnerability, the kind of intimate delivery the song demands.
The marriage ended in divorce around 2005, though fan accounts from 2006 and 2007 still referred to Costa as her performing partner, suggesting the musical collaboration continued beyond the marriage itself. She has a daughter, Hannah Aldridge, from her family life during this period.
The PBS Years and Ongoing Legacy
The PBS syndication of the Welk show brought Sheila back into living rooms across the country through the late 1980s and 1990s, and she was a consistent participant in the reunion productions that followed.
She appeared in the 2001 PBS special Lawrence Welk: Milestones and Memories alongside much of the surviving Musical Family, the 2007 production Lawrence Welk’s TV Treasures, and the 2008 Branson Welk Stars Reunion, which stands as the last documented major public appearance.
She and Sherry also recorded The Gift, a Christmas album with the Billy Andrusco Trio, which showcased their vocal maturity in an intimate setting and remains sought after by Welk collectors.
Where Is Sheila Aldridge Now
Sheila Aldridge turned 69 on July 18, 2025, and will turn 70 in 2026. Public records place her in the Hendersonville, Tennessee area — the Nashville suburbs — where she has lived privately for years. There are no confirmed public performances or media appearances after the early 2010s.
In 2024, a post in a Welk fan group mentioned a hospital stay. Sherry Aldridge followed up with an update that Sheila had been released and was recovering.
It was a non-fatal health event, handled privately, with family support. The fact that Sherry provided the update is consistent with a sibling bond that has lasted across seven decades.
One clarification for researchers: a death notice for a Sheila Aldridge circulated in 2025 and caused concern among fans. That individual was a UK resident and an entirely different person. The Sheila Aldridge of the Lawrence Welk Show is, based on all available information through early 2026, alive and in retirement in Tennessee.
She came a long way from those balcony seats in Nashville.
The girl who convinced her boyfriend to drive her to a Welk concert on the chance of an audition grew into one of the last great performers of the Champagne Music era, a songwriter, an actress, and someone who kept finding new ways to use her voice long after the bubble machine was switched off for the last time.
Who is Sheila Aldridge from the Lawrence Welk Show?
Sheila Aldridge, born July 18, 1956, in Knoxville, Tennessee, was the younger of the two Aldridge Sisters who joined The Lawrence Welk Show in 1977. Known for her animated stage presence and soprano voice, she was the more energetic half of the Aldridge Sisters and Otwell Twins quartet, one of the show’s most popular acts during its syndication years from 1977 to 1982.
Who did Sheila Aldridge marry?
Sheila Aldridge was briefly married to comedian Roger Behr around 1980. She later married singer-songwriter and keyboardist Chris Costa in 1998. They performed as a husband-and-wife duo in Nashville and recorded together, including a notable duet of Bob Dylan’s To Make You Feel My Love. The marriage ended around 2005, though they continued collaborating musically. She has a daughter named Hannah Aldridge.
What did Sheila Aldridge do after the Lawrence Welk Show?
After the show ended in 1982, Sheila continued performing for years. She and Sherry opened for Bob Hope and George Burns, performed at casino resorts in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Lake Tahoe, and appeared on Dinah Shore and Hee Haw. She also pursued acting with guest spots on The New Mike Hammer and the TBS series Down to Earth, received a songwriting credit for the 1989 country song If I Ever Go Crazy by The Shooters, and recorded the Christmas album The Gift with Sherry and the Billy Andrusco Trio.
Is Sheila Aldridge still alive?
As of early 2026, Sheila Aldridge is believed to be alive at 69 years old and living privately in the Nashville, Tennessee area. A 2024 fan group post mentioned a hospital stay, but her sister Sherry confirmed she had been released and was recovering. A death notice for a Sheila Aldridge circulated in 2025 but referred to an unrelated UK resident and not the Lawrence Welk performer.
What was Sheila Aldridge’s role on the Lawrence Welk Show?
Sheila Aldridge served as the soprano and melodic lead of the Aldridge Sisters and Otwell Twins quartet. She was known for her animated stage presence and was frequently chosen for close-up shots and comedic vignettes. While her sister Sherry provided the harmonic anchor, Sheila handled the contemporary and country-pop leads and brought a more visually energetic quality to the quartet’s performances.
