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Sonia (born Sonia Evans, 13 February 1971),^[1] is an English pop singer from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, who was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[2] She is perhaps best known for the number one hit "You'll Never Stop Me Loving You" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest.

Music career[link]

Her singing career was launched in 1989 by the songwriting and music producing trio Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman. She was signed to Chrysalis Records after badgering Pete Waterman to listen to her sing outside the recording studio in Liverpool. Waterman did a regular weekly radio broadcast. He called her bluff and had her sing live on his show. She released her debut single, "You'll Never Stop Me Loving You" in June 1989^[3] and it quickly became a number one single in the UK Singles Chart. At 18, she became one of the youngest female British singers to achieve this feat.

She released her debut album, Everybody Knows, in 1990, which peaked at #7. All 5 singles taken from it became top 20 hits, making Sonia the first British solo female artist to achieve this. Also in 1990, she recorded the song "You've Got A Friend" with the group Big Fun. It was released as a charity single for Childline and became a top 20 hit.

Due to tensions with Stock Aitken & Waterman she left the label and released her second, self titled album in 1991, produced by Nigel Wright. The first single taken from it, "Only Fools (Never Fall in Love)" peaked at #10, although the album was less successful than her debut.

She sang on two charity singles, Band Aid II's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1989 (peaked at #1 in the UK) and Gulf Aid's "As Time Stood Still" in 1991.

In 1993, she represented the United Kingdom in the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest, singing the Dean Collinson and Red composition "Better the Devil You Know". She finished in second place. Her third album, also titled Better the Devil You Know was released that year and reached #32 in UK.

In 1994, she replaced singer Debbie Gibson as Sandy in the West End musical Grease. A cover of "Hopelessly Devoted To You" was released as a tie-in single, but it only peaked at #61 in the UK.

In 1995 she released a cover of "Wake Up Everybody", which did not enter the UK Top 100. It was to be the lead single of her fourth album, the soul covers album Love Train - The Philly Album, but Sonia was unhappy with it and it was only released as a promo.

Sonia did vocal part in Italian eurobeat singer Nuage's I'm Never Gonna Let You Down And Forget You with Nuage. Produced by eurobeat producer Dave Rodgers, the song was released in Japan 2004.

Late 2007 saw her greatest hits album released only featuring recordings from Sonia's time with BMG Music (1991–1993).

In 2007, prior to Sonia's Greatest Hits release, she recorded two Motown-influenced songs, "Dancing In the Driver's Seat" and "Your Heart Or Mine", both of which were written by Barry Upton and U.S. songwriter Gordon Pogoda. However, her record label decided to include no new songs on "Greatest Hits", so both recordings remain unreleased to this day. (Barry Upton also co-wrote Sonia's hit "Only Fools (Never Fall in Love))". The first recording of "Dancing in the Driver's Seat" (sung by Inspiration), however, was released in the Oscar-winning film Little Miss Sunshine and is on the album Gordon Pogoda Songs From Film & TV. The song is in a similar vein to other Motown-influenced Sonia records like "Only Fools (Never Fall in Love)", "Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy" and "Better the Devil You Know".

In 2008, Sonia recorded a cover of The Beatles' classic "She Loves You" for the Liverpool – The Number Ones Album.

On 1 June 2009 she released her first single for fourteen years - "Fool for Love".

In 2010, Sonia's debut album and its accompanying singles were reissued on CD and iTunes, including several never released remixes and two unreleased songs: a megamix and a cover of "Let's Have a Party". Also in 2010, Sonia's unreleased cover of the Carole King song "You've Got a Friend", a duet with Big Fun, was released on a reissue of the group's debut album.

Acting career & television work[link]

Prior to her music career, around 1988, Evans appeared as an extra in Channel 4's soap opera Brookside, and also appeared in an episode of the BBC1 situation comedy Bread, where she played Ellia, a short-term girlfriend of Adrian Boswell, in episode 11 of series 5.

In 1990, Sonia co-hosted children's gameshow The Wetter The Better as a scoreboard person with main quizmaster Ross King which was part of the Saturday morning children's magazine show 8:15 from Manchester.

In 1993, Sonia made her theatre debut in the musical Slice Of Saturday Night, alongside Dennis Waterman. The following year she replaced singer Debbie Gibson as Sandy in a West End revival of Grease, where she stayed for a year. In 1997 she returned to the stage on the musical What A Feeling!, which also included fellow 1980s stars Luke Goss and Sinitta. An accompanying soundtrack album was released.

She has also played alongside Lily Savage as her wayward daughter Bunty Savage, both on the BBC series The Lily Savage Show and live shows.

In 2003, Sonia appeared in the reality show Reborn in the USA where former popstars including Leee John from the band Imagination, Michelle Gayle, Elkie Brooks and pop duo Dollar performed American hits. The show saw the artists touring America and each week one artist was eliminated from the show. The show was aired on ITV1 and was presented by Davina McCall. Sonia came sixth out of the nine participants, and her participation was notable for her clashes with Dollar members Thereza Bazar and especially David Van Day.

In January 2007 she starred in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, as Jack in Horsham, West Sussex, alongside Mark Curry.

Discography[link]

Studio Albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• www.myspace.com/soniaontheweb - In contact with Sonia's Management Team and provided with regular updates regarding tours, etc.
• www.soniaontheweb.com
• Sonia discography at Discogs
• hem.passagen.se/sihmon/Sonia/Main.html - The Sonia Site
• hem.passagen.se - Sonia's discography

Sonia Johnson (born Sonia Ann Harris; February 27, 1936) is an American feminist activist and writer. She was an outspoken supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and in the late 1970s was publicly critical of the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), of which she was a member, against the proposed amendment. She eventually was excommunicated from the church for her activities. She went on to publish several radical feminist books and become a popular feminist speaker.

Early life and education[link]

Sonia Ann Harris, born in Malad, Idaho, was a fifth-generation Mormon. She attended Utah State University and married Rick Johnson following graduation. She earned a Master's degree and a Doctor of Education from Rutgers College. She was employed as a part-time teacher of English in universities both in the United States and abroad, following her husband to new places of employment. She had four children during these years. They returned to the United States in 1976.^[1][2]

LDS Church and ERA[link]

Johnson began speaking out in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1977 and co-founded, with three other women, an organization called Mormons for ERA. National exposure occurred with her 1978 testimony in front of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, and she continued speaking and promoting the ERA and denouncing the LDS Church's opposition to the amendment.^[1][3]

The LDS church began disciplinary proceedings against Johnson after she delivered a scathing speech entitled "Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church" at a meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) in New York City in September 1979. Johnson denounced allegedly immoral and illegal nationwide lobbying efforts by the LDS Church to prevent passage of the ERA.^[3]

Because the speech drew national media attention, leaders in Johnson's local Virginia congregation immediately began excommunication proceedings. A December 1979 excommunication letter confirmed that Sonia Johnson was charged with a variety of misdeeds, including hindering the worldwide missionary program, damaging internal Mormon social programs, and teaching false doctrine.^[4] Her husband divorced her soon after, which she blamed on "the mid-life crisis."^[2]

After the rupture with the church, Johnson continued promoting the ERA, speaking on television and at numerous functions throughout the country, including the 1980 Democratic Convention. She also protested venues such as the Republican Party headquarters in Washington. She and twenty ERA supporters were briefly jailed for chaining themselves to the gate of the Seattle Washington Temple in Bellevue, Washington.

Citizens Party presidential candidate[link]

Johnson ran in the 1984 presidential election, as the presidential candidate of the U.S. Citizens Party, Pennsylvania's Consumer Party and California's Peace and Freedom Party. Dr. Flora 3rd was associated with her at that time and remembers that the press was not taking her press releases seriously or her press conferences, at which perhaps one reporter or so showed up. Sonia was the first woman who got federal matching funds to run for president, but she had little or no support from the national media. In the Washington Post, there was one small article, that seemed to ridicule her efforts and didn't report honestly on the large numbers of her supporters. Seeing that she could get nowhere in the United States, she used the funds to form the International Women's Congress, and organized other conferences and organizations to help raise the consciousness of women worldwide and start micro-enterprises in remote villages. Johnson received 72,161 votes (0.08%) finishing fifth.^[5] Her running mate for the Citizens Party was Richard Walton and for the Peace and Freedom Party Emma Wong Mar.^[6] One of her campaign managers, Mark Dunlea, later wrote a novel about a first female president, Madame President.^[7]

Publications and personal views[link]

Johnson became increasingly radicalized, especially against state power, as reflected in the books she published after 1987. They include:

• From Housewife to Heretic (Doubleday, 1981)
• Telling the Truth (pamphlet, Crossing Press, 1987)
• Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation (Crossing Press, 1987)
• Wildfire: Igniting the She/Volution (Wildfire Books, 1990)
• The Ship that Sailed Into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered (Wildfire Books, 1991)
• Out of This World: A Fictionalized True-Life Adventure (Wildfire Books, 1993)

In Going Out of Our Minds Johnson details the personal and political experiences that turned her against the state. In the book she rejects the Equal Rights Amendment, the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, equal opportunity laws, and other government benefits because she considers them cooptation by patriarchy.

In Wildfire Johnson elaborates on her beliefs and answers her many critics in and out of the feminist movement. Her bottom line argument is that state violence is male violence and that women relate to the male-dominated state much as women relate to battering husbands who alternately abuse and reward their wives to keep them under control. She compares both relationships to the Stockholm Syndrome in which hostages develop an emotional attachment to their captors.

In chapter three of Wildfire, entitled "The Great Divorce," Johnson writes: "I have heard women involved in male politics say about our political system almost the same words I have heard battered women use about their abusers: 'Of course our government isn't perfect, but where is there a better one? With all its faults, it is still the best system (husband) in the world.' Like a battered wife, they never think to ask the really relevant questions: who said we needed a husband, or a husband-state, at all?"

During this time Johnson also declared herself a lesbian and began a relationship with woman. After ending that relationship, she wrote in The Ship that Sailed Into the Living Room that even relationships between female couples are a dangerous patriarchal trap, because "two is the ideal number for inequality, for sadism, for the reproduction of patriarchy", and that relationships are "slave Ships" (a concept from which she derived the title of the book).

"Nearly four years after I began my rebellion against relation/sex/slave Ships," she wrote, "experience and my Wise Old Woman are telling me that sex as we know it is a patriarchal construct and has no rightful, natural place in our lives, no authentic function or ways. Synonymous with hierarchy/control, sex is engineered as part of the siege against our wholeness and power."^[8]

Johnson also founded Wildfire, a short-lived separatist commune for women that disbanded in 1993. She published several of her books under the imprint "Wildfire Books."

Personal life[link]

Johnson currently lives in New Mexico with partner Jade DeForest, where they run Casa Feminista, a hotel catering to feminist women.^[9] She continues to speak at feminist events, including the 2007 Feminist Hullabaloo.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History, Chapter 17 "Sonia Johnson: Mormonism's Feminist Heretic," (University of Illinois Press, 1998)
• Majorie Hyer, "Mormon Bishop Excommunicates Woman Who Is Supporting ERA," Washington Post, December 6, 1979, p. A1.
• Sonia Johnson Papers at University of Utah Library Collection website.
• Sonia Johnson photograph collection of LDS-related and other ERA demonstrations at University of Utah Library website.
• Report on 2007 Feminist Hullaballo (with photographs).
• Bradford, Mary L. (Summer 1981). "All on Fire: An Interview with Sonia Johnson". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (2): 27–47. http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/dialogue,4463. 

Sonia Lee (born April 12, 1960) is a Korean-born entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and president of Fullpower Technologies.^[1]. Sonia Lee also co-founded LightSurf and Starfish Software.

She is married to Philippe Kahn, CEO of Fullpower Technologies. They have one child. Together, they run an environmental charity, the Lee-Kahn Foundation. She is known for her passion for landscape and still life paintings.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lee-Kahn Foundation, with biographies of Lee and Kahn
• Sonia Lee Gallery, a gallery of Lee's paintings