Sheila Chandra (born 14 March 1965 in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
) is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pop singer of
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n descent.
Sheila Chandra first came to public attention as an actress, playing Sudhamani Patel in the BBC school drama
Grange HillGrange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television...
.
As a teenager she formed the band
MonsoonMonsoon was an early to mid 1980s UK synth-pop trio that consisted of singer Sheila Chandra, record producer Steve Coe, and bass guitarist Martin Smith...
, and created a fusion of Western (
synthpopSynthpop is a subgenre of pop and electronic music in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It originated during the New Wave era of the late 1970s and to mid-1980s, and it has continued to exist and develop ever since....
) and Indian pop styles. The band consisted of Chandra, Steve Coe (who became the band's producer), and Martin Smith.
Sheila Chandra (born 14 March 1965 in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
) is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pop singer of
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n descent.
Indian-Western synth pop fusion period
Sheila Chandra first came to public attention as an actress, playing Sudhamani Patel in the BBC school drama
Grange HillGrange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television...
.
As a teenager she formed the band
MonsoonMonsoon was an early to mid 1980s UK synth-pop trio that consisted of singer Sheila Chandra, record producer Steve Coe, and bass guitarist Martin Smith...
, and created a fusion of Western (
synthpopSynthpop is a subgenre of pop and electronic music in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It originated during the New Wave era of the late 1970s and to mid-1980s, and it has continued to exist and develop ever since....
) and Indian pop styles. The band consisted of Chandra, Steve Coe (who became the band's producer), and Martin Smith. Chandra and Coe later married. They made a lone album
Third Eye-Track listing:#"Wings of the Dawn " – 3:56#"Tomorrow Never Knows" – 4:01#"Third Eye and Tikka T.V." – 2:53#"Eyes" – 3:41...
in 1982 from which they had a surprise hit single "Ever So Lonely", which peaked at #12 in the UK. They followed-up with the single, "Shakti", which peaked at #41, but this was to be the band's final charting single. The album also includes a cover of
The BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960 who became one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music...
' "
Tomorrow Never Knows"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver. It is credited as a Lennon/McCartney song, but was written primarily by John Lennon....
", featuring the distinctive EBow guitar sound of
Bill NelsonBill Nelson is a prolific guitarist, songwriter, painter and experimental musician from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England...
.
However, resenting pressure from their record company over musical direction, Monsoon dissolved and Coe and Smith set about promoting Chandra as a solo artist on an independent label.
Chandra went on to release a number of albums in the 1980s, at times experimenting with her voice as an instrument through a range of techniques. In the 1990s she released three albums on
Peter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering...
's
Real World labelReal World Records is a record label started in 1989 by Peter Gabriel to help promote world music.The label grew up alongside the success of the WOMAD festivals and Peter Gabriel's exploration of music from other cultures, and helped push world music into the general public's consciousness during...
, although Martin Smith was no longer actively involved by this time.
Shift to British and Irish folk influenced singing
Since 1992 she has shifted from the Indian-Western fusion of
synthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument that is capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequencies...
-centered pop to styles that draw on British and Irish traditional singing traditions.
Chandra is a much-respected performer on the world music scene and remains active into the 21st Century.
In 2002 she performed the song entitled Breath Of Life with
Howard ShoreHoward Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, orchestrator, conductor and music producer. He was the first band leader on Saturday Night Live. He composed the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the scores to most of David Cronenberg's films...
for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack.
In 2007, she took part in
Simon EmmersonFor the experimental music artist, see Simon Emmerson .Simon Emmerson is a Grammy Award-nominated record producer, guitarist, DJ and founder of the group Afro Celt Sound System....
's project
The Imagined VillageThe Imagined Village is a folk musical project spearheaded by Simon Emmerson of the Afro Celt Sound System. It is designed to produce modern folk music that represents modern multiculturalism in the United Kingdom and as such features musicians from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural...
, which set out to re-interpret traditional English songs using a wide range of contemporary English musicians. Chandra recorded two songs for the album, which included performers as diverse as Paul Weller,
Billy BraggStephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician who blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs. His lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
,
Martin CarthyMartin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of...
,
Eliza CarthyEliza Carthy , is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson....
,
Benjamin ZephaniahBenjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is a British Rastafarian writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.Zephaniah has said that his mission is to fight the dead image of poetry in...
and
Johnny KalsiJohnny Kalsi is a British Indian Dhol drum performer residing in London. He is a former member of Alaap and Transglobal Underground and the founder of the Dhol Foundation. He also performs with the Afro Celt Sound System and The Imagined Village....
. She also appeared with The Imagined Village on a concert tour of England in the late autumn of 2007.
Discography
Albums
With Monsoon:
- Third Eye
-Track listing:#"Wings of the Dawn " – 3:56#"Tomorrow Never Knows" – 4:01#"Third Eye and Tikka T.V." – 2:53#"Eyes" – 3:41...
(1982)
Solo
- Out on My Own (1984)
- Quiet (1984)
- Nada Brahma (1985)
- The Struggle (1985)
- Roots and Wings (1990)
- Weaving My Ancestors' Voices (1992)
- The Zen Kiss (1994)
- ABoneCroneDrone (1996)
- Moonsung: A Real World Retrospective (1999)
- This Sentence Is True (The Previous Sentence Is False) (2001)
- Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized...
(2002)
- The Indipop Retrospective (2003)
Singles
- "Ever So Lonely" (1982)
- "Shakti (The Meaning of Within)" (1982)
- "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1982)
- "Wings of the Dawn" (1983)
- "Ever So Lonely" (Remix by Ben Chapman) (1990)
Interviews
External links