Sonja Paris
Sonja Verena Paris (Reuter) was born in Hamburg, Germany in July of 1964. She studied German and English language and literature at the University of Hamburg, sang lead in the Hamburger local Rock band 'Bandits' and took almost three years of singing lessons from the well known opera singer Liliana Aabye-Hecker.
In 1988 she was hired as editor and journalist by the Heinrich Bauer publishing company and due to her English language skills that
were above the skills of her peers, she conducted interviews with foreign celebrities such as Paul McCartney, Helen Schneider, Sean Connery (just to name a few).
That was the time she turned her back on singing: "I had to choose between music and writing, because I had not enough energy for both, especially at the beginning stages of my journalistic career, when I had still so much to learn. And as a mezzo soprano it was anyway unlikely that I would ever have been able to make good money in the opera field. Like Liliana Aabye-Hecker said to me: 'You will always have a job, playing mothers or witches, but your voice is not high enough to sing the main parts.'
"Besides: I had always a weight problem, and making it in the music business as a chunky short woman is near to impossible, regardless in which field. But that was not my only problem: Even though I was good during practice, I always had so much stage fright, that I needed to be considerably drunk, plus take off either my glasses or take out my contact lenses (I am extremely shortsighted!) before going on stage, so the audience would just be a blur to me. Only in this haze and daze was I able to be relaxed enough to give my best in front of a larger audience. Not ideal conditions for trying to become a professional singer, and so I decided, that I had realistically a better chance to become a professional writer."
Less than a year after her first steps into journalism, she met Johnny Paris® and they fell in love with each other.
"I think I always felt drawn to people in the music field. I was never able to play an instrument correctly, and I admire people that play an instrument well. I have a strong love for music and I had a good voice, but playing an instrument, now that is something totally different. John on the other hand absolutely hated journalists, but he said he was drawn to me right from the start and he could not help it but to fall in love with me."
"I loved John's courage, confidence and calm knowing demeanor. He told me he never knew stage fright. Whether it was on stage or later on, after we were already married, in the dogshow ring, when John handled our Bullmastiffs in competitions: He was always very confident. He was most of the time a calm and introverted person, very stoic and in control of the situation, while I was more wound up, talking up a storm and easily flustered. Nobody could calm me down and comfort me like he could, and I know that my uplifting spirit and bubbly personality sparked him up and brought him out of his shell that he wore like an armor around himself all too often. I think we simply found our matching opposite in each other in so many ways..."
She wrote two books.
She finished her first book in collaboration with Duane Thomas Griwack about her late husband, Johnny and the Hurricanes® founder and saxophonist Johnny Paris®, which is expected to hit the market end of 2010/ beginning of 2011.
Sonja Paris: "This book stirred up some bad blood, because some people disapprove of the fact (to say the least!) that I make money off my husband's legacy. I see it that way: Every biography written means making money off a legacy or dead person. That is just the way it is, and would apply to EVERY writer that EVER dared to get involved in a biography. With that in mind, I believe it is better that someone writes a biography that actually really knew the person a book is about than to leave it up to someone who JUST gathered papers and articles to create a picture of a person. But after all, this book is not just JOHN'S legacy, but also over 17 years of my own life.
Meanwhile Sonja Paris finished her second book "Make the cougar purr", a fictional story about a middle-aged woman. This book was released in May of 2010 and is available through amazon.com and various online book stores.
