SONiA - Making music to bring people together

SONiA Rutstein began her singing career in Baltimore, Md., in the bathtub with her sister, Cindy. By junior high school she was writing protest songs, though she didn't realize the songs were political. In 1988, she and Cindy formed a band called disappear fear. They named the band disappear fear "because when you disappear fear between people what you have left is love," SONiA has said.

The creation of disappear fear marked the point when SONiA stopped using words in her songs to obscure an important part of herself. Her essential message stayed the same.

"Even though I was gay and in my 20s, I wanted to just make music for everybody," she said in a phone interview from her home near Baltimore, Md.

Disappear fear made four albums before Cindy left to be a full-time mother. Since then, SONiA has recorded two albums on her own. She will perform Wednesday night at the Cape Girardeau Senior Center.

The concert is sponsored by Insisterhood/Equal Footing, a lesbian, gay and bisexual organization. Denise Eaker started the group in Pensacola, Fla., in early '90s, putting on events that drew hundreds of thousands of people. This is the group's first event since she moved back to Cape Girardeau in January.

The group's purpose is "to build unity and community and give the lesbian and gay community a place to know they have support and are not alone," she said. "It has to be a community effort in order to build community."

SONiA's speaking voice is full of laughter. Her singing voice has an attractive little crack in it, like the one both Kenny Rogers and Gwen Stefani have nearly patented. Her songs are political but devoid of political correctness. They are about people and the choices they make and range widely on her newest album from the gorgeous country-sounding love song "Postcard from Texas" to the dance club frenzy of "Shake It."

SONiA's latest studio work is band oriented. She will perform alone Wednesday but says, "I still enjoy rocking it out."

From the start as a folkie who played Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens songs, she wanted to make music that was involved in people's lives, "the Crosby, Stills and Nash we can change the world thing," she said.

SONiA's current anthem is "Me, Too," the title song off her new CD. The song is both patriotic and a gay political statement. In it, a Vietnam War vet tells his daughter, "Cause America shines in front of me/and all the world could see if they wanted to/I raise this flag for you, me, too."

When his daughter approaches to tell him "something I've never said before," he says "shhhhhhhhh ... every body has a war."

Earlier in her career SONiA wrote songs that obscured her sexual orientation. "I would play with metaphors. A lot of it was so obtuse anyway," she said.

Most of all, she did not want to write standard pop songs. "I tried everything in the universe to stay away from boring cliches," she said.

That's why the late Phil Ochs, the '60s protest singer, is one of her muses. "What drew me to Phil Ochs' music was because he was so authentic," she says.

SONiA has recorded seven CDs and performed at the Lilith Fair with Sarah McLaughlin, Jewell and the Indigo Girls. She often performs at benefits for gay causes but also plays benefits for other organizations she supports, for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"I never wanted to make music just for an audience of one race, one religion or one sex," she says.

"I love that music brings people together. That would be the point of good music."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182