Singapore's Paul Anka at the Rex Cinema:
I was interested in music since my school days and sang during the end of year school concerts and functions. I guess I love the stage and took the opportunity to perform whenever I could. In fact, four of my classmates and I participated in a skit called, "Kiss No Harm," where we drew laughter and joyful tears from our audience during the annual concert.
When I started working, I took part in singing competitions at annual picnics organised by commercial organisations and one like 'Amateur Night' at the Capitol Cinema, the 'Vespa Club' Nite at Siglap Road.
I never looked back after that and free-lanced with a few bands like the Velvetones (later Philips recording artistes, 'The Firebyrds') and Swallows, Singapore's number one Pop-Yeh-Yeh band.
I met The Silver Strings when I met Audie Ng (bass) and 'Danny Boy' (drums) during their jam sessions at Idris Road. The others were David Chan (lead) and Wilfred Chew (rhythm). At that time the group practised songs by The Shadows, The Ventures and other groups.
Like many such contests those years, they were held to promote the movies, singers like Paul Anka and actors. It was a genuine contest and quite a number of prominent Singapore 60's artistes participated.
For me, it was fun and games, took an academic path afterwards and left the band trail after nearly two years.
Check out later postings on this issue.
Images from Google.
SG50: A Pioneering Spirit on The Singapore Memory Trail.
7 comments:
Singapore's very own Paul Anka, eh? Hope you resume your passion for singing.
Dear Andrew,
I was at the November 8 show and it was a historic occasion for me. I had gone to see another Silver Strings show at another venue in Pasir Ris. For that show they used Filipino session musicians. This show was different because they had yourself, Veronica Young and Mike and Herb. Of the Strings they had Audie and Danny Boy. That was as near authentic as it could get. It was great seeing you and then Veronica Young and then Mike and Herb do their segments. Hopefully there would be more such shows in the future.
Regards.
Joseph.C.Pereira
I think the Paul Anka singing contest was held at the Rex Theatre.I watched it and I believed the contest was in conjunction with a film that Paul acted in.
Thanks, my brother's classmate was in the final maybe he was the runner-up. Well we were the young ones then.
Yeah. We're all YOUNG ONCE. Now physically we may be less young but we're still YOUNG AT HEART. As we age actively we know that THE BEST IS YET TO BE.
My heartiest congratulation to you on the 11th anniversary of your blog. I had the pleasure to watch you win the Paul Anka contest in the late 50s.
The film poster brought back fond memories of the cast, veteran crooner Mel Torme, bandleader, Ray Anthony and not forgetting the vivacious sexy bomb, Mamie Van Doreen.
John, isn't that the place you hung out at when you were young? Rex.
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