Phil and Sonya Upchurch: a marriage of music and ministry


By Stanley O. Williford
Director of Publications

Both Phil Upchurch and Sonya Maddox-Upchurch enjoyed immense success in their respective fields of entertainment before they met, married and became members of Crenshaw Christian Center.

Phil Upchurch, a highly regarded and sought-after guitarist, has recorded with such revered artists as Quincy Jones, Jimmy Smith, Bob Dylan, Ramsey Lewis, Curtis Mayfield, the Staple Singers and George Benson. To name all the greats he collaborated with musically over his 50-some-year career would extend the list too far.

Some may recall that during a nationally-televised jam session during his inauguration, President Bill Clinton played sax on a rendition of Phil’s 1961 million-seller, You Can’t Sit Down.

Phil’s guitar has been featured in such movie sound tracks as “Superfly,” “Claudine,” “Let’s Do It Again” and “Sparkle.” Again, it would be too lengthy to try to mention all such collaborations.

Atlanta-born actress-singer Sonya Maddox established her career on stage and in movies, but especially in commercials. Included among the 200 or so commercials she has done are Gatorade, Progressive Insurance, Walmart, Home Depot, Honey Bunches of Oats, Listerine, South Beach Diet foods, UPS and others.  Here again the list is too extensive to mention them all.

Some might have seen her scene as a nurse in “Spider-Man 3,” or as Blair Underwood’s wife Michaela in the HBO series “In Treatment.” How did the guitar become Phil’s instrument of choice? The Chicago native says, “The Lord put it in my hand.” As a child, while out shopping with his dad, he admired a ukulele in a store window. His father, a jazz pianist himself, purchased it for him and taught him a few chords. At about age 12, his dad replaced the ukulele with an electric guitar. Graduating from the ukulele to the guitar “was a natural progression,” Phil says, since the guitar had only two additional strings. 

Phil’s first professional gig came “around age 16 or 17,” while he was still in high school. He lists three strong influences in his early life: blues great B.B. King, guitarist Les Paul (and his wife singer Mary Ford), and Nat Cole and the Nat Cole Trio.

While his numerous recordings fall in the categories of blues, jazz, R&B and soul, Phil calls himself a music minister. 

 “I have always been a spiritual person,” he says, noting that he played at First African Methodist Episcopal church (FAME) in Los Angeles for several years whenever he was not touring, and that he “always did have an interest in the Bible.” He dedicated his life to the Lord in 1980.

“Music ministry [is] opening your mind and heart to receive the Word. It puts you in that mind or mode. Music is very powerful and can take you one way or the other. Some music is very dark. God’s music can turn people around. Music is as much a part of ministry as anything. People walk up to me with tears in their eyes, even in nightclubs.” In one example, another guitarist was so moved after hearing Phil play that he told him, “Man, I see the light.”

Phil has recorded 27 albums “of his own leadership,” and like Sonya has appeared in commercials, namely for Secure Horizons, AARP and Tropicana. Sonya recalled her first meeting with Phil.

“I was sort of at the height of my commercial career, doing very well, disciplined and focused,” she says. She had starred and sang in the 2003 movie, A Single Rose, which was screened in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, won several film awards and made it to twelfth cut of the Oscars.

Also, people loved her singing, but when asked if she could provide a CD, she couldn’t because she didn’t have one.

“Music kept pulling on me. I started producing my own music, but I needed a guitarist. One of the producers said, ‘I want to introduce you to Phil Upchurch.’ Unaware of his lengthy music reputation, Sonya wanted him to audition. When Phil played an instrumental piece he had written called Truly, she asked if she could write lyrics to it. He said no initially, but finally said, “OK, I’ll see if like them.” 

He liked them, and they soon after became writing partners.

“The first day he met me he asked me to marry him,” Sonya recalls. “We never dated. It was always a working arrangement.”

Apostle Frederick K.C. Price married them in 2006, after which Sonya admits, “a lot of my focus shifted to my husband.”

Through their business, WONDERVISION, she manages Phil and herself as a music contractor.

Both Phil and Sonya are multidimensional artists.

While serving in the military in Germany from 1965 to 1967, Phil developed his skill as a photographer. In 2005, Sonya curated an exhibit of his work at the California African American Museum. Among the photos were shots from Germany, from work, and from his various other travels. The exhibit not only included photos of Bill Cosby, Neil Sedaka, Dizzy Gillespie and other famous persons, but landscapes and famous sites. As much as anything else, music has remained an enduring passion for Sonya. Classically trained, she has performed since age six “in musicals and classical choirs” in both Atlanta and Los Angeles. After hearing her sing, noted music executive and trumpeter Herb Alpert offered her a stint at his Hollywood Hills jazz club, Vibrato. 

As for acting, she said: “I still go out on auditions. But the industry has changed. I’m very selective now. I turn down lots of offers because of the wrong image. I’m extremely selective.”

Sonya is not just an artist; she is also an activist. She has served as a board member on the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), including a seat on the national board of directors. She has also served as chairperson on the National Women’s Committee, the African American Subcommittee and the Equal Opportunity Employment Committee, and she is an active member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Like Phil with his music, Sonya considers her activity in entertainment as a ministry.

The couple are a good match – a match set to music.