Curved Air

Sonja Kristina started out by wanting to be a folk singer. She learned guitar at her convent school in Brentwood, Essex, around the same time Hank Marvin and Bert Weedon were guitarists.

“It took me about a year to get a fair grasp of the basics of guitar, and then I started writing a few little songs of my own, and at school I was singing and playing on stage with a girlfriend and doing folk clubs, such as the White Swan at Romford, off my own bat.”

Her brother also introduced her to friends who ran Jewish folk clubs, and she was kept busy for the next couple of years.

“The first thing I did for them was to sing at a concert where Julie Felix was supposed to be topping the bill. She couldn’t make it, however, and I found myself singing between acts such as The Settlers, The Carlins and the Three Shades of Blue. I was 15 at the time, and it was the first really big thing that I did.”

Around this time, she met and became friends with Al Stewart, who helped her learn by giving her a whole load of new material to listen to.

Sonja spent a year at the New College of Speech and Drama in Hampstead, and her time at college broadened her whole scope and taught her the basics of stage dynamics.

There followed a period of singing on the street, in tube stations and outside London’s Middle Earth club in Covent Garden – the birthplace of the British progressive music scene.

This led to her first real encounter with the rock side of the business. She got a job as vocalist with a blues band called The Piccadilly Line, who were resident at the Marquee.

Sonja took over the running of a Wednesday night mixed-media show at the Troubador Club in Earls Court. There she met many people connected with the business, not least among them Dave Cousins of Strawbs fame, who considered her a replacement for Sandy Denny.

It was not to be, however, and after another period of “barefooting it around London” – at the time of the whole hippie/flower power thing – Sonja auditioned for the Hair musical, which was due to open in London. At first, she was just a part of the tribe, but her singing at rehearsals impressed the producer so much that she ended up with the major part of Chrissie.

Her Hair experience of working with electric music proved a great help when she met Florian Pilkington-Miksa, Rob Martin, Darryl Way, and Francis Monkman – the four original members of Curved Air.

“They were dead against the idea of a girl singer at first,” said Sonja in 1973, “but we got on so well together that the whole thing evolved naturally. They were concerned with the music basically, so I got busy with the lyrics.”

Curved Air completed three tours of the States and tours of Europe and became a huge success at home via three albums – Air Conditioning (1970), The Second Album (1971) and Phantasmagoria (1972).

The work and success took their toll, however, and Curved Air’s personnel changed completely during 1972, with Sonja and bassist Mike Wedgwood now joined by Kirby Gregory (Guitar), Eddie Jobson (Violin and keyboards), and Jim Russell (Drums).

A short-lived Curved Air reunion in the mid-70’s featured four original band members (Linwood, Way, Monkman and Miksa) and was preserved for posterity on Curved Air – Live (1975), recorded at Cardiff University and Bristol Polytechnic during a three-week UK tour in 1974 put together to pay off a substantial unpaid VAT bill.

Darryl Way and Sonja Kristina decided to form a new Curved Air lineup, joined by guitarist Mick Jacques, bassist Phil Kohn, and future Police drummer Stewart Copeland (who eventually married Kristina). Kohn was later replaced by Tony Reeves.

After a number of albums, Way left, and the band broke up quietly and remained inactive for the next three decades, until a one-off reunion concert in 1990 featuring Kristina, Way, Monkman, and Pilkington-Miksa. The performance was captured on the Alive 1990 album, released in 2000.

Curved Air regrouped in 2008 with a revolving lineup.

Florian Pilkington-Miksa died in May 2021, aged 70, after several bouts of pneumonia. Francis Monkman died from cancer on 12 May 2023 at the age of 73.

Sonja Kristina Linwood
Vocals
Darryl Way
Violin, keyboards, vocals
Francis Monkman
Keyboards, guitar
Rob Martin
Bass
Florian Pilkington-Miksa
Drums
Ian Eyre
Bass
Mike Wedgwood
Bass, guitar, vocals
Kirby Gregory
Guitar
Eddie Jobson
Violin, keyboards
Jim Russell
Drums
Phil Kohn
Bass
Mick Jacques
Guitar
Tony Reeves
Bass, keyboards
Stewart Copeland
Drums