Singapore 60s Music Girl Group The Teepees by Freda Hanum

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I met Freda on board our cruise ship Silver Strings Concert 2019. She was chatting with Rickie Ch'ng our then lead guitarist. When I suggested that she posted her famous girl-group on the blog, she was kind about it and obligingly agreed. 

So here's the lady keyboardist herself relating the adventures of  The Teepees. Thanks so much dear Freda.

Long before K-Pop (Korean girl pop groups) came on the scene in today's soundscape, Singapore already had its S-Pop (Singapore girl pop groups) and if you look at the images on this posting, you will realize they were just as pretty, petite and attractive enough to hold an audience.  And they sing just as well, so much so, that some of them even performed in Europe. But let Freda, keyboardist, tell the story...

Rose Kassim - bass, Freda Hanum - keyboard, Rumini Ra’oef - drummer and Anna Law - guitar. What a reunion for the four of us after being apart for 47 years.  Well, I am gonna shoot back 45 over years ago and discover how we young ladies met in 1969 and formed this popular Singapore girl-band the Teepees. We got together through this agency Talent Promotion managed by Yem Ya'acob, Mr. Wong the finance manager, and a Korean Samuel Hong, the music instructor. Teepees got the name from the initials of Talent Promotion, T.P. and while searching through the dictionary all of us found the word Teepees, which means, American Native Indian conical tent. 

Even our first set of uniform, a design of native Indian styled pants and tops that were orange in color with brown bothers and stripes like the ones shown on our first EP cover, made us look like squaws.  All we needed then were colorful headbands and a feather each on our head.

We were young and ambitious with no experience at all in the music line but managed to fulfill our dreams in the entertainment scene. We received intensive coaching and practice and within two months started our first experience working on stage nightly at the Shindig Club in Singapore. There side by side with us was the well-known Kingfisher band and later Kuala Lumpur's top guns, The Falcons performed together on the same platform. You realise how excited and proud these four young girls were to be able to perform professionally like the others popular bands.  We maintained strict discipline, reminded always by Mr. Yem our personal manager. We had to adhere to these rules at our working venues and at other performances. Meantime, Mr. Yem would arrange group advertisements, newspaper interviews and promoted us all the time.

After our first experience on stage, we went into recording and came up with our first Extended Play vinyl (EP) in 1969 titled RINDU and after a few months, our second in 1970, TEMANKU YO YO with Kamalia Latiff and Sunny Bala, from the well-known group The Moonglows, who was guiding and coaching the band. 

We made appearances on Singapore TV on the popular local variety shows and also at the open-air National Theatre. With us on the same show was Anita Sarawak. She was one of the top stars then.
We had regular contracts to play at many venues in Singapore, i.e. the Airport Lounge, President Neptune, Mandarin Palace, Top Tunes . The second time we went back to Shindig Club, we accompanied Veronica Young. Our big chance came when we performed and ventured into Malaysia. And the venues and appearances came like wildfire. There was the Great Eastern Cabaret at Campbell Road and at Fortuna Hotel Mayflower Nightclub at Jalan Chulan in  the Malaysian capital; in between we had a stage show, written in Anna's diary, on 24th Dec 1970 at Snowball a charity show in KL organised by the University of Malaya. And appearing also were the October Cherries and Grim Peaches.

Then to Penang for a month at Shanghai Restaurant Nightclub, where we also got to know the Alleycats, a famous recording group, and then down south to Malacca at the Iquana Club.  We got a short stint  at the Straits View Hotel in Johore Bahru, where we had Royston Sta Maria to play the bass for us while waiting for Rose' visa approval. We met quite a few foreign strip-teasers from Merchinta Night Club situated just behind Straits View Hotel. They were very friendly artistes.  The gigs came quick and slick.  About a year  later, when we came back to Singapore in 1972, we worked at the Multi Storey Nightclub, The Majestic Nightclub, Gay World Amusement Park and at the Grand Palace Theatre Nightclub, Katong and at Summit Hotel.  Due to an unfortunate incident, I had to leave in early 1973. 

Soon after, Anna had to leave the group in late 1973 when Rumini and Rose accepted a 4-year contract for a European tour, with the Teepees flag flying high,  they ventured to Europe from 1975 onwards.  But that, dear reader, is another story.

Images n Article are Copyrights Reserved and belong to the Teepees and Ms Freda Hanum.