Featured artist:
Sonja Kristina
Photo:
Simon Dunkerley/GRTR!
Sunday
3 May 2015, 16:00 (Part 1)
Now available at
Mixcloud
Sunday 31 May, 16:00 (Part 2)
Now available at
Mixcloud
David
Randall chats to Sonja Kristina about her career.
In Part
1 Sonja chats about Curved Air
In Part
2, Acid Folk and her work with Marvin Ayres in
Mask
Includes music from all aspects of her career.
SONJA KRISTINA
Sonja
Kristina joined Curved Air in January 1970 after a successful
stint in the stage musical 'Hair'.
In the sixties, influenced by Sandy Denny and Buffy St.Marie,
she had played in folk clubs. With Curved Air she was
voted 'Best Female Vocalist' in Sounds music paper in 1971 when
she was also regarded as something of a sex symbol although this
aspect was more fully developed after the mid-1970s.
Whilst
Curved Air achieved some success, including a Top 5 single with
'Back Street Luv', they had several line-up changes and in 1976 succumbed to musical differences and differing musical
trends with the onset of punk.
After
releasing her first solo album in 1980, with her then band
Escape, Sonja spent much of that decade raising a young family.
By 1988 she
was gigging again and is generally regarded as a pioneer at that
time of "acid folk" when she hooked up with Ty-Lor and Friends
and in 1991 released 'Songs From The Acid Folk'.
In 1994
she made the album 'Harmonics Of Love' which introduced electronica influences,
a style further developed after she met
composer/producer Marvin Ayres. Their joint project - Mask
- produced two albums, 'Heavy Petal' in 2005 and 'Technopia'
in 2009.
At various
times, Sonja had been involved with Curved Air "revivals", in
the mid-1980s even making a single under that name with
violinist Darryl Way and a live band album was recorded in 1990.
However it wasn't until 2008 that the present line-up of the
band developed, initially with Darryl Way but subsequently with
Paul Sax on violin (a one-time member of Sonja's acid folk band
Cloud Ten) and - from late-2013 - with original seventies
guitarist Kirby Gregory. The band's studio album 'North
Star' was released in March 2014 to positive reviews.
Sonja has
been described as "one of modern music's true journey women and
pioneers" and has also been involved in stage plays, TV shows
and education, including a teaching post at Middlesex
University.
Curved Air website
Album review ('North
Star')
More information (selected albums)
Page
updated 29.04.15
Sonja Kristina playlist
(2012)
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