SINGAPORE 60's: ANDY's POP MUSIC INFLUENCE IS A PERSONAL MUSIC, MEMORY TRAIL. BLOGGER DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO VIDEOS, AUDIO TRACKS AND IMAGES. THEY ARE UPLOADED FOR FUN, EDUCATIONAL, ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES AND HAVE BEEN CREDITED. BLOG IS NOT SPONSORED NOR ADVERTORIAL IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. INFORM BLOGGER OF COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND POST WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT COPY THE POSTS; GET PERMISSION N CREDIT ME IF YOU DO. ANDY LIM LA (NOVEMBER, 2008) -
(新加坡六十年代安迪的流行音乐影响力)
Condolences to Mr Moses Lim's family. According to local news he passed away on Tuesday 11th February at 75 years. He was more famously known as 'Tan Ah Teck' in his comedic role on Singapore television called, 'Under One Roof' where he, with his screen family, made home viewers hilarious. The actors included: Koh Cheng Mun, Andrew Lim, Vernetta Lopez and others.
Mr. Lim, besides being an actor, was also a television host and food critic. He studied at Maris Stella High School, Anglican High School and at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He had a comedy partner, the famous film producer and actor Jack Neo. A talented man indeed, Moses Lim had worked with other well-known Singapore celebrities like Marcus Chin and Najib Ali. He was also invited by famed Hong Kong producer, Robert Chua to work there.
RIP Moses! We love you and will miss you...
Mr Lim, in yellow shirt, was with Andy Young and the Silver Strings in a Channel 5 Media Corp series in 2016 called 'Not The 5 Show' here:
I met Chris during those early years when he was a journalist. Cheerful, open and always knowledgeable, we had a chat over both our favourite topic, local music from the 60s. This article is a comment in reply to **my own article about reading books. [Andy]
"Having worked with a book publisher for the better part of five years, I feel sad that Singapore does not hold reading in high regard. While the book business in several countries has picked up in recent years, it is not the case in Singapore.
What's also interesting is that over here it's the nonfiction books that make the most sales. It used to be children's books but our declining birthrate has meant that fewer parents buy books for their children. So we are not creating tomorrow's readers today.
I don't know if it's because kids equate reading to school texts but somewhere along the way from sixteen to adulthood the idea of reading for entertainment stops and I believe that for many, it's a case of reading only because they must.
I hope I'm wrong. While I do enjoy a good video or two, apart from music, books are still my most basic form of entertainment.
What many people don't realise is that a lot of our top tv series or even movies are all adaptations of books.
Maybe it should not be a case about whether books should continue to be a thing but that storytelling continues to thrive. After all, our stories were originally of the oral tradition before books. And now it's moved on to electronic devices.
However, books still rank high as gifts so maybe that's where it will continue to survive. Keep giving books as presents!"
John Cher, Jimmy Yap, Irene Yap, TAN SOO KHOON [host]
Actor Pierre Png and wife Andrea de Cruz.
Only part of the garden party. We didn't sing nor
dance but chatted and feasted the night away... Fun time!
Host and Hostess:
Mr and Mrs Tan Soo Khoon
[centre stage in red and white]
Fred Ching says:
"It’s really wonderful to see gathering photos of Mr Tan Soo Khoon’s Garden Party. This brought back memories whenever I visited my father-in-law living in Tanglin Halt Road. As I speak fluent Teochew, he never failed to speak very highly of Mr Tan with his praises.
Mr Tan takes pride in his work despite his heavy schedule. As I look back, Mr Tan is truly a blast from the past and he reminded me of this singer with the warmest voice in the world.
It is this time of the year that we start sending out greetings for the Chinese Lunar New Year. That message may include some songs from that era when Shanghai Pop started.
Today, may I invite you to listen to some of the originals from 30s and 40s with some accompanying footnote.
One of the most popular times is 恭喜恭喜by brother and sister team of 姚敏and 姚莉 （attachment 1)。They work their magic with their interweaving vocals accompanied by a guitar. This song a cathartic expression of the daily survival of the difficult time China was undergoing through with occupation by Japan and the concession of certain parts to western nations during 他the war years of the 30s and 40s.
The concession carved out a safe conclave in which denizens of Shanghai escaped into a make-believe world of movies, both local and western, and enjoyed the melding of western music and local folk fare.
Big band and jazz descended upon Shanghai with the immigration of Russian musicians (picture of band in attachment 2). They plied their artistic talents in recording studios, primarily dominated by Pathe, and dance floors of well known clubs such as the Black Cat （attachment 3）
This period spawned a genre known as 时代曲 'shi dai qu'. Apart from having the light and competent flight of fingers over piano, guitars, flutes, these war years were blessed with academically trained writers such as Chen Ge-Xin and Liu Ru-Zeng, not forgetting Yan Hua 严华 and Yao Min 姚敏. The result was stunning with intricate arrangements of the various instruments, and the weaving of the vocals. Example is 醉人的口红虹（attachment 4 ）。
May I wish a happy new year with 贺新年by 张帆（attachment 5）。It borrows very heavily from ‘Jingle Bells’.
Comments are always welcome.
Author: JT CHEN.
Very grateful JT for such an awesome peek into this period of Shanghai's popular scene. Andy.
Many thanks to JT Chen for this massive article. Happy Lunar New Year to you, Brother Andy and all friends here! Wishing you great health and happiness.
I was fortunate to be attending this concert on this day 30 January, nine years ago, where Taiwanese Mandopop’s Iconic Diva Stella Chang performed some of her hits with a New Year’s twist. The two time Golden Melody Award winner for Best Mandarin Female singer belted some of her great hits and brought music souls on a beautiful reminiscing journey and a trip down nostalgic lane.
Love her crystal clear and distinctive vocals with powerful penetrating high notes. Many were touched by her voice as it grew in strength and vibrance over the course of her show. Here is Chang who was nicknamed Dongfang Bubai (The Invincible East) for her stellar record sales in the late 80s and early 90s with this CNY jingle songs.
Great to hear again JT Chen blast from the past and this upbeat tempo renditions. Thank you for posting once again, Brother Andy.
Are book shops closing down because less and less people are reading text on paper as more and more are mousing or tapping the Internet to read from Kindle, e-reader, iPad, Tablet or smart-phone, since they find it convenient and sometimes free to read off these technological miracles? Now is this statement true? I'm not sure.
It took me a while to collect this set of five volumes.
But I'm still lurking in book shops and book sales and some two years ago managed to get a set of coffee-table ones that I found so useful. They went for a dream price of ten dollars each. In a nutshell, I paid about sixty dollars for what I thought was a bargain. And it was. From the news and picture archives of the Daily Mail this fabulous British newspaper charted people, places and events that made up five memorable decades (from 1960 to 2000) into readable volumes. And the contents, according to the blurb, were photographs from the momentous and the apocalyptic to the offbeat and the trivial. And it's true.
Cover of the first book in the series.
At a cute 17 cm. square per book, I couldn't buy them all at one time, having to hunt for three of the five volumes after getting the first (1960's) and the third (1980's). I remember paying a little more for two of them. But it was fifteen pounds (S$30/00) each when it first came out in 2010. Using quality paper and beautiful photographs in black and white each book by Trans Atlantic Press from Hertfordshire, England is nearly 400 pages thick. Nobody would pay for five books now since portable hard disks are a bargain?
The Beatles and Folk Group Peter, Paul n Mary.
I don't think I have the stamina to write a review on each of the five books and even if I had I'd probably be sued by the publishers for exposing their hard work so I am highlighting Decade of Our Lives 60s (above) and had it narrowed down to only pop music and relevant news and pictures. With a picture on every page it's quite a task. But let's take a peek inside.
For the liberated woman: Plastic Dresses and The Pill.
The series is an exciting picture journey all the way with a clear description for each and every image taken. According to the introduction, the 1960s was a swinging decade when postwar baby boomers came of age and found themselves in a new permissive era as the Pill launched a sexual revolution. As hemlines rose all you needed was love; flower power challenged old orthodoxies and Kennedy carried the hopes of a generation when he became US President. Like Martin Luther King after him, John F. fell to an assassin's bullet.
Youthful Cliff 's 'Summer Holiday'
In the movies there was John Wayne, Anthony Perkins, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the Magnificent Seven gang of Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and friends. On stage were Adam Faith and Cliff Richard, clean living members of society...
I'd better not carry on. The volumes are still with me on my library shelf. Love reading directly from solid, hard copies, especially in bed. No blue light giddiness nor sleeplessness afterwards...
But never stop reading, hard copies or from tablets.
There is no intention to promote any publication nor make financial gains. Any copyrights misdemeanours and this posting will be deleted. Do let me know.
German synth-pop band Alphaville originally recorded "Forever Young" [1984 debut album] and was a huge success in Scandinavia, German-speaking European countries and Singapore; became a signature song for the band and covered by numerous singers. The late Ms Branigan covered it in 1985.
Many thanks to Phil for writing this informative and interesting Christmas Message. It's truly worth a read. Comments are always welcome.
A Christmas Reflection on Jesus’ Birthday.
UP TO 350 VIEWS, 100 CHATS,
COMMENTS, GREETINGS, COMMENTS, CHATS
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for inviting me to write again for Christmas 2024. I think, I will share excerpts from my recent invited public lecture on the Christmas Star at the Singapore National Gallery.
What Child is This w/ Lyrics (Francesca Battistelli)
Isaiah 9: 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Two historical passages were examined at the public talk, namely Luke 2: 8-20 (Baby Jesus, The Shepherds and Angels) and Matthew 2:1-10 Child Jesus and Magi (Wise men, Kings).
A possible clue for Jesus’s birthday comes from an unlikely historical account in Luke 1:5-25, 39-56 regarding the date of John the Baptist’s birth. This passage is not normally read during Christmas.
In the time of Herod king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.
Once when Zechariah's division was on duty; he was chosen by lot to serve as priest before God, according to the custom of the priesthood. He was to go into the temple of the Lord to burn incense. When the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshippers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.
When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.
From the Old Testament, King David organized the priests (and the Levites) into 24 courses (1Chronicles 24:1-31). Abijah was the eighth of the priestly divisions (1Chronicles 24:10). This would mean the month of Sivan would be around May-June when Elizabeth got pregnant.
The Birth of Jesus Foretold (6 months after John):
Luke 1:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a Virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Luke 1:35 The angel answered Mary, Luke 1:36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. The above indicates there were 6 months between the conception of John and the conception of Jesus.
When was John born ?
If it is 9-month gestation, John would have been born in the month Nisan … (Mar-April) during the Passover/Unleavened Bread/First Fruits Festivals. See Hebrew calendar below.
Jesus would have been born 6 months later, that would be in the month of Tishri (Sept-Oct) another 3 Festivals (one of them is the Feast of the Trumpets). This would be fitting as 1 Kings 1:32-34 informed us that when anointing a coming King, the ancients blow the trumpets. See Hebrew calendar above.
However, the current traditional date for Christmas was first decreed by the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine, to be December 25 as the official date to celebrate the birth of Jesus in 326 CE.
Now that we know when born Jesus was born, what about the year of His birth?
A 1980 Symposium at the famous Griffith Observatory (USA) discussed the historical significance of several astronomical events between 3 BC and 2 BC in an effort to establish the Christmas Star that the Magi (wise men from the East) might have noticed.
Who were the Magi from the East ?
They were likely from Babylon or Persia. One may note that in ancient times, the intellectual center of the world was Baghdad. Europe was busy persecuting heretics at that time but Baghdad was open to all thought. The Arabs invented algebra; algebra and algorithm are both Arabic words. In fact, two-third of the stars in the night sky have Arabic names.
At that time, great advances were made in fields such as Mathematics, astronomy, navigation, including engineering in the Middle East, especially in Baghdad. One may ask, “Why is that so?” The well-known Astrophysicist, Dr. deGrasse Tyson claimed “If you look at what was going on, they were open to all lines of thought. Jews, Muslims, Christians, doubters and atheists. They would all come around the table and share ideas. Through robust debates, if you have some philosophy that’s got holes in it, some one’s going find it and they’ve got to challenge you on those ideas. And what happens is that the conversation’s got ratchet up. You discard what doesn’t work and you keep what does. When you do that, you make discoveries rapidly.”
"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." C.S. Lewis, Oxford.
Between 3 BC and 2 BC, the Magi would have taken notice of special conjunctions of Jupiter-Venus (Between Aug 3 BC and June 2 BC, both these two celestial objects “bound” together could easily be seen in the skies as they would be unusually bright) and would have alerted the Magi. One can use powerful computer sky maps programmed with the laws of physics today to confirm this observation. [See below.]
What is more interesting is that Jupiter (known as the King Star in ancient times) retrogrades (a peculiar motion of planets) in such way that “circles” around Regulus (this star is the brightest in the constellation Leo). Regulus is known as the little King star in that period and Leo being the Lion constellation is associated to the Hebrew tribe of Judah).
More details are given in a previous Christmas Star post (2022):
It is often pointed out that there is a discrepancy between Luke’s and Mathew’s accounts on Jesus’ birth. The Shepherds saw Baby Jesus in a manger near Bethlehem while the wise men met Toddler Jesus in a house in Bethlehem (where the “King star” Jupiter stopped). But a careful reading of the Holy Scriptures would elucidate that the wise men met Jesus after more than a year of travelling from the East (probably 2000 km on horses or camels) by following the path of Jupiter’s retrograde motion. Jesus by then would be about one to two years old. Another clue comes from King Herod’s wanting to kill every child of that age when they heard from the wise men that a King had been born.
Jesus was likely born in September-October during 3 BC to 2 BC. The shepherds were not likely to have brought sheep out to the Judean hills (near Bethlehem) during the winter months in December. After about more than a year, the Maggi would have met toddler Jesus in December the following year.
It is also interesting that this year’s Jewish Festival of Lights or Hanukkah (also known as the Dedication of the Temple) coincides with Christmas 2024. Hanukkah is an eight-day festival in commemoration of the re-dedication during the 2 BC of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. According to John 10:22 Jesus was at the Hanukkah celebration.
Finally, at this traditional Christmas 2024, let us still be merry, enjoy ourselves and bring good tidings of Jesus to all man. Nehemiah 8:10 said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
Isaiah 9: 6, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Wishing you and your family good health, a Blessed Christmas 2024 and a Happy New Year 2025.
