Haugabrooks Funeral Home

She was 76.A memorial service will be announced later by Haugabrooks Funeral Home in Atlanta.Brookshire was born in the Appalachian mountains of northeast Georgia. Her family was one of many to make a move to Atlanta for work at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill.She grew up in Cabbagetown. Her mother worked in the mill and raised four children alone in an $11-a-month rental after her husband went out for apples and never came back, said Elise Witt, a fellow singer-songwriter and friend for 38 years.Brookshire began writing songs when she was nine, and what she lacked in technical musical knowledge she made up with heart and passion, Witt said.Song was a part of Brookshire’s life as long as anyone can remember.Leon Little, who ran Little’s Grocery in Cabbagetown, said Joyce and his younger sister Faye could often be heard singing as they played on a swing set near the Little home.“She was always around our house,” said Little, who was in class with Brookshire from kindergarten through high school. “She was like another sister to me.”In the early 1970s, Brookshire went to work at The Patch, a drop-in center for kids in crisis in Cabbagetown. At The Patch, she met folk singer and political activist Esther LeFever. Brookshire credited LeFever, who died of cancer in 1999, with nurturing her talents as a songwriter and performer. “Without Esther, most of my music might still be in my head, “she said in her promotional material.In the 1970s and 1980s, Brookshire toured with folk singer Guy Carawan, lived in Knoxville, and had a band, Phantoms of the Opry, with Phyllis Boyens, who played Loretta Lynn’s mother in the movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”Her first solo album, North Georgia Mountains, was released in 1977 by Foxfire Records. Other albums followed, including, “Whatever Became of Me” in 2000 and “Cabbagetown Ballad” in 2005.She was featured, along with the Indigo Girls and other well-known Atlanta musicians, on the album “Don’t Eat Out of Dented Cans,” produced by WRFG Radio. Her music also was featured in the ... (Atlanta Journal Constitution)