Sonya Isaacs

Musician · b. 1974 · Morrow, Ohio · Also a recording artist

Sonya Isaacs is a singer, songwriter and mandolin player who has sung since childhood with her family’s gospel and bluegrass group, the Isaacs, and with them became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2021. She also made a country album for Lyric Street in 2000, placed five singles on Billboard’s country chart, and co-wrote Martina McBride’s 2011 single “I’m Gonna Love You Through It.”

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Sonya Melissa Isaacs was born on 22 July 1974, the daughter of the Kentucky-born banjo player and singer Joe Isaacs and the New York singer Lily Isaacs, and grew up near Morrow, Ohio, graduating from Little Miami High School in 1992. Her parents’ band, Joe Isaacs and the Sacred Bluegrass, played gospel bluegrass, mostly on weekends, and she, her brother Ben and her sister Becky joined it on stage as they grew old enough; from 1986 the family worked full time as the Isaacs, and in 1992 it moved to LaFollette, Tennessee.

The Isaacs recorded for Harvest, Morning Star and Horizon and, from 2004, for Bill Gaither’s label, appearing regularly in the Gaither Homecoming concerts and videos, where Sonya sang features such as “Daddy Sang Bass” (1998) and “Go Rest High on That Mountain” (1999). After her father left the group in 1998 her singing, set in the family’s harmony, came to the front of its sound. Their albums include Heroes (2004), Big Sky (2007) and The Living Years (Gaither, 2013), which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s bluegrass albums chart, and four have been nominated for the Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album. Ricky Skaggs invited the Isaacs to join the Opry on 10 August 2021, and they were inducted on 14 September.

Alongside the family group she signed with Lyric Street as a country solo artist. Her singles “On My Way to You” and “I’ve Forgotten How You Feel” reached No. 54 and No. 46 on the country chart in 1999, and both were on her album Sonya Isaacs, released on 10 October 2000, along with “Barefoot in the Grass,” which reached No. 64. A Christmas single from the label’s collection No Wrapping Required also charted, and her highest-charting record, “No Regrets Yet,” a single that was on no album, reached No. 36 in 2003. She left Lyric Street in 2004.

As a guest she has sung on many bluegrass records by other artists: harmony on Wildfire’s Uncontained (Pinecastle, 2001); “Won’t They Be Surprised” on BlueRidge’s gospel album Gettin’ Ready (Pinecastle, 2006); solo albums by the fiddlers Jim VanCleve (No Apologies, 2006) and Hunter Berry (Wow Baby, 2007) and the banjo player Rickey Wasson (From the Heart and Soul, 2008); and, with Ricky Skaggs, harmony on Cherryholmes’s Cherryholmes II: Black and White (2007), whose title song she wrote. NewFound Road’s Same Old Place (Rounder, 2009) also drew on her songs. With Vince Gill she sang “Misty” on Cledus T. Judd’s 2007 tribute to Ray Stevens. With the songwriters Jimmy Yeary and Ben Hayslip she wrote “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” released by Martina McBride in July 2011, which reached No. 4 on the country chart early in 2012 and was nominated for the Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance.

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