Sheila Chandra

Sheila Chandra is a writer and retired English vocalist and actress of South Indian descent. She now coaches creative professionals and has written two guidebooks for improving organizational skills.

Chandra first gained fame as a teenage actress on the British teen school soap "Grange Hill" playing the character Sudhamani Patel between 1979 and 1981. Her future husband and musical partner, Steve Coe, discovered her talent when he found one of her demo tapes in a box at Hansa. He was looking for a vocalist for his Asian fusion band Monsoon at the time.

Monsoon's debut single, "Ever So Lonely", recorded when Chandra was just 16 years old, reached #9 in the UK charts in April 1982. However, subsequent singles had less impact and she left the group by the end of that year. Chandra went on to release four solo albums with Indipop before retiring from music at the age of 20.

In 1991, she made a comeback with her fifth solo album called "Roots and Wings," where she began experimenting with drone-based music. This marked a new direction for her work in the '90s, including three albums released under Real World Records. These albums fused Arab, Andalucian, Celtic, Indian vocal styles with even older traditions like Gregorian plainsong. Additionally, Chandra performed live for two years during this period.