By Richard Duckett TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF rduckett@telegram.com
Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter SONiA says Saturday’s concert and rally are about worldwide peace — and the beauty around us.
SONiA and her sister CiNDY founded disappear fear in 1987.
They grew up in Baltimore.
When was the Summer of Love?
Wars come and go — as do peace movements, rallies and concerts.
Grammy-nominated folk singer-songwriter SONiA co-founded the group disappear fear in 1987. Since then world conflict hasn’t exactly disappeared.
“Yes and no,” replied SONiA, who will be performing with disappear fear at “The Missing Peace” concert and rally that runs from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of St. John’s Church, 44 Temple St., Worcester.
“The basic military spending of the United States has always been astronomical, so in some ways it’s not all that different. But that we can say so louder and jump on it is a great thing.”
SONiA (more about the spelling later) is the author of such songs as “No Bomb is Smart.” Although work can be very personal, her music has been described (in Sing Out! Magazine in this instance) as containing “spirited protest updated for today’s ears with charm and a touch of gl-amore.”
“I think that’s always been there,” she said of the protest/peace content of her songs during a recent telephone interview. “I think I was influenced by Vietnam and the wars happening in Israel and the Mideast and my heritage as a Jew. I think anyone who is somewhat fragile, and we all are at some point, thinks it’s scary to say this but ‘why can’t it be different?’ When you disappear fear between people what you have is love.”
Asked what she hopes someone would take away from her concert, she replied, “I just hope they can connect to know their true life’s purpose. … I would like it to be like oxygen and for them to see all the beauty that’s here and worth saving.” She paused. “I don’t mean it to sound like a can of maple syrup sap,” she added.
The last remark indicated that while SONiA can sincerely talk of peace and love, she also has a reflective, wry edge about her as well.
That’s something one wouldn’t necessarily have encountered in San Francisco in the summer of 1967.
And Wendy Counihan-Nelson, president of the Massachusetts chapter of The Healing Light Institute of Spirituality, which is presenting Saturday’s concert, resolutely denied that her own intentions could be termed naive.
“I haven’t heard anyone say I’m naive,” she said. “No matter what your background, we all want the same thing. We all want to live happily and spend time with our families. Sure people are skeptical. They don’t know how that could work.”
The Healing Light Institute of Spirituality, based in Massachusetts at 85 Harding St., Worcester, helps people who are “suffering from any kind of abuse in their life and teaches them about spirituality,” Counihan-Nelson said. “It’s really tough for people to find inner peace when the world is such a mess.”
She hopes that people attending “The Missing Peace” concert “take the time out to listen to what they (the performers) say about manifesting peace and listen to the music, which is so beautiful. … People ask, ‘Is this an anti-war rally?’ It really isn’t. It’s more to manifest inner peace.”
Other performers Saturday include local artists Ed and Da_ve with T and The Jane Miller Trio, and the nationally known Kim and Reggie Harris. Among the invited guest speakers are U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, Brenda Jenkin, Harrison Greene, the Rev. Alvin Wolf, the Rev. John Madden and Jozephina Lantz. The concert will be held rain or shine, and a tent will be set up in the parking lot. Food vendors will also be at the event. Counihan-Nelson said that she expects an audience of about 200 to 300 people, “hopefully more.”
Maybe this will be Worcester’s one day of summer of love.
SONiA said that she’s appeared in front of crowds ranging from a million people at Central Park, New York City, to a handful in a café. “It varies. It just depends on where we’re playing and that sort of thing. For two decades it’s a roller coaster.”
Regardless of the venue, “I’m singing from the heart and that’s what seems to touch people,” she said.
Sonia Rutstein was born in 1959 and said she grew up to a lot of music in her home in Baltimore. Her father loved ethnic music and jazz and her mother was into opera. “And I listened to a lot of folk music when I was quite small. I started singing. I was always singing as a kid. And I started writing songs.” She started playing the guitar when she was 13. At school she performed in musicals, and was writing plays as a fourth-grader. She has also written poetry separate from her song-writing and is an artist.
When she was young she would sometimes compose songs with lyrics taken from magazines, feeling that her own words weren’t good enough.
In response to the question of when did she find her own voice as a singer/songwriter, SONiA said, “I don’t know if I’ve found it yet. When you’re in the experience you’re sort of oblivious to the experience, so I don’t know when that would be.”
As for influences, “I would say Phil Ochs was a huge influence on my work, and I’m sure, too, the works of (Bob) Dylan and (Bruce) Springsteen today.”
After SONiA and her sister CiNDY founded disappear fear, the act soon developed a following and increasing radio play. After several CDs CiNDY left to pursue motherhood while SONiA performed and recorded both solo and with reconstituted lineups of disappear fear.
Her 2004 CD “No Bomb is Smart” featured a cast that included producer Craig Krampf, members of the Dixie Chicks band, Glen Worf of Mark Knoffler’s band, and Ed Snodderly of O’ Brother Where Art Thou, as well as CiNDY. The album was nominated for a Grammy in the Contemporary Folk category and for an Out Music Award for Best Female Artist. She has also received a GLAAD Award for Best Album.
Still, SONiA hasn’t yet received widespread commercial success — something she is aware of but not uncomfortable with. “I think to me it’s a one-to-one kind of flow. I’ll just go with it,” she said. “If people were singing a particular song of mine, that would be wonderful. But I know what I’m trying to do.”
Since Feb. 19, 19 cents of every 99 cent Web site (www.soniadf.com) download goes to The United Nations World Food Program — each to feed one child one meal in school.
While Saturday’s concert may not be anti-war, SONiA wasn’t shy about expressing her opposition to the war in Iraq. “I think we should come home. Yesterday. We never should have gone,” she said.