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The remarkable highs and lows of Singapore-born, Torpoint-resident bluesman Jimmy Appudurai-chua.
[JIMMY APPUDURAI-CHUA PASSED AWAY AT A HOSPITAL IN ENGLAND, @ 8.30PM, 29TH AUG, 2023. HIS BIRTHDAY IS JUST 2 DAYS AWAY, 31 AUG.]
[JIMMY APPUDURAI-CHUA PASSED AWAY AT A HOSPITAL IN ENGLAND, @ 8.30PM, 29TH AUG, 2023. HIS BIRTHDAY IS JUST 2 DAYS AWAY, 31 AUG.]
Saturday, June 08, 2013.
Plymouth, Herald.
U.K.
This article has been written by MARTIN FREEMAN of the Plymouth Herald in England. He is a senior writer. Thanks to both Martin and Jimmy.
He has been pushed out of his homeland, lost his house and his wife, had a drug habit and faced death through kidney failure.
No wonder Jimmy Appudurai-chua took to playing the blues.
Blues Guitarist Jimmy Appudurai-chua (right) from Torpoint Jimmy pictured with Bryan Adams and singer Cathy Davis in 1988 (top) with The Meltones (left - Jimmy is pictured far left) and, above, one of Jimmy's photographs of Eric Clapton
But this unfailingly optimistic man plays the famously downbeat genre with a smile.
There have been enough highs among his lifetime lows to keep him cheerful.
He once knocked The Beatles off number one spot, mixed with some of the biggest names in the rock world – Eric Clapton and Bryan Adams among them – in a second career as an in-demand photographer and ran his own photo businesses that was at the forefront of a service revolution.
He shakes his head in wonder at the number of times people have gone out of their way to lift him from a low and set him on course to another high.
"I have been so lucky," he says. "It is quite amazing really."
Not at all amazing – he is one of those rare people you like as soon as you meet them. People want to help him because he is such great company: somebody with so many stories to tell but still modest and not at all world-weary. He comes across straight away as a gentle soul, utterly content with life's simple pleasures.
It's hard to picture this man with such a sunny disposition being so low that he had virtually given up on life.
He confesses, though, that his health was so bad that he came to Cornwall a dozen years ago to die.
Then, perhaps eager not to darken the mood, he corrects himself quickly.
"Well not to die, but I was very, very ill."
He enjoys good health now because, against the odds, he got the kidney transplant that was needed to transform his life. He was a particularly difficult tissue match.
Today, after the many highs and lows, he lives modestly in a small flat in Torpoint.
Jimmy still occasionally picks up his guitar to play gigs in the Plymouth area.
But every year or so he returns to his Far east birthplace to enjoy a little celebrity status at the Singapore Blues Festival.
He was born 66 years ago in the city state.
There was a whiff of scandal to the family.
"My mother, Jean, was Chinese and she broke all the rules, getting involved with a married man," he says.
"She was his mistress, which angered her whole clan. But I knew nothing about this.
"She was from mainland China and during World War Two was working in Malaysia, where my father, who was from Sri Lanka, was a doctor."
Jimmy and his two sisters, Betty (who now lives in the United States) and Minnie (now in France), saw their father once or twice a year, and believed simply that he worked away – he had a high-powered job as deputy chief medical officer with the Malaysian government.
"I only found out when I left school that he was married with another family.
"I went to Malaysia with some friends. I told my father where we would be staying, but thought I would surprise him by calling at his house – a big government-owned residence.
"I knocked on the door and asked to see him and a woman answered and said she was his wife.
"My jaw dropped open. I was so angry. I said, 'Tell him his son called to see him!' and ran off. That was so mean, the most malicious thing I have ever done."
But there was no damage done to his relationship with his father, who turned up later at the hostel where Jimmy was staying, oblivious to the previous drama. "She obviously didn't tell him, because he said nothing."
Father and son continued to have a good relationship.
Rewind a decade farther and Jimmy's status as an outsider hit home to him when he started school.
English is the official language in Singapore but young Jimmy spoke only two Chinese dialects when he went to school.
The city has a reputation as a cultural melting pot, but Jimmy, already handicapped by his language difficulties stood out even more when religion reared its head.
"It was a Catholic school – my mother was Methodist, my father was a Hindu, my grandmother was a Taoist, my uncle was a Buddhist and I lived in a Muslim village," he says, laughing.
He found a way of belonging through music. Inspired by Cliff Richard and the Shadows and US guitarist Duane Eddy, he picked up an instrument at 14 and taught himself to play.
Soon he and his schoolmates had formed a band, with a name and sound straight from the Sixties: the Meltones, complete with smart skinny suits and tunes in the Shadows/ Freddie and the Dreamers mould.
"We played a lot of gigs, but always asked for early finishes so we would not be late in bed!
"We just enjoyed the thrill of seeing our names in the Straits Times (the leading Singapore newspaper)."
After leaving school he joined Motif, a band made up of British RAF personnel – Britain still had a big presence in its former colony. This was his introduction to rhythm'n'blues. "They got me listening to the Stones, Yardbirds, Alexis Korner, the Kinks. I took the guitar away and learned it all by ear."
Jimmy talks to Dave Gould about his experience in the music industry.
After a spell with his father in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and completing an engineering course, he faced a spell in uniform with the Singapore Air Force. "I had to do two years' national service," says Jimmy. "A friend told me that if I joined as a regular I could resign after six months and avoid national service.
"So that's what I did – but they wouldn't let me resign. I was stuck in for three and a half years!"
While working as a technician he was able to indulge his passion for R'n'B in a new band, the Straydogs.
They were signed to EMI's iconic Harvest label and in 1969 knocked the Beatles off the No 1 spot in Malaysia and Singapore with a self-penned tune, Freedom.
"That was a very good feeling," says Jimmy. "We made another single after that but it didn't do as well."
Nor did the Straydogs career fare well in the conformist city which was then known for its illiberal Government. "They did not approve of bands with long hair. They closed down all the venues.
"Our record was unofficially banned and only one radio station would play it, but it still got to No 1. If I wanted to play the music I liked I had to leave, really.
"I came to England in 1972 but that was a disaster. I was performing in working men's clubs in Newcastle and not getting anywhere.
"So I moved to London, and that was even worse. I got regular gigs in Chelsea but it all went on dope. It was a black period of my life."
His use of cocaine and marijuana was dragging him down and stopping him getting a proper day job.
"The only work I got was as a cleaner. One woman at a house in Hammersmith took a liking to my cleaning – one thing about being stoned is you are very thorough!
"They were very impressed that I didn't take any of the money that was lying around – I tidied it into neat piles of coins.
"She invited me back and got me to meet her husband. He invited me to a job interview and when I didn't turn up – there was a Tube strike – they phoned up to check why and sent a car round for me.Can you believe that?
Jimmy's contribution during a performance in Singapore among an audience of friends in 2015.
"His name was Michael de Semlyen and he ran the Tudor photographic processing business, based in Cricklewood.
"I started as a cleaner. After a couple of weeks they asked me to work in dispatch, then soon after they asked me run it, and then the shop-floor.
"When Tudor opened their second processing plant in Wandsworth in 1976 they asked me to manage it."
One innovation Jimmy made was to introduce a same-day service.
By 1981 he needed a break and went back to Singapore to sort out an immigration matter. Tudor created a job for him, putting him in charge of their Far East operation.
On a visit to Hong Kong he was enjoying a blues night at a club when a fellow veteran of the Singaporean rock scene, Chris Vadham, spotted Jimmy in the audience and invited him on stage to play.
Jimmy picked up a guitar for the first time in nine years and was hooked again.
Gigs followed back in Singapore and the music connection would lead him on a new direction when he returned to the UK.
Tudor had been bought out so Jimmy and three others started their own mini-lab processing in upmarket Notting Hill, home to many people from the entertainment industry.
"We were losing money and the others pulled out, but I had an idea: I put the prices up from £3.99 to £8 a film offering an exclusive service," says Jimmy. "It was a big success."
Wealthier clients liked the personal touch. Singer songwriter Annie Lennox was one, and actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, (Scarface, the Abyss and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) was another.
Musician Michael Kamen was another regular. He wrote the score for Robin Hood including one of the most successful singles of all time, (Everything I do) I Do It For You, jointly put together with performer Bryan Adams and Robert John Lange.
"I became friendly with Michael and he introduced me to Eric Clapton.
"Michael would invite me to his big Thanksgiving parties that were full of stars, and ask me to photograph them."
Soon Jimmy's work behind the lens led to him taking more time off stage. He worked for magazines and record companies, covering every visiting blues artist at the 100 Club and high-profile gigs at the Royal Albert Hall.
He photographed Eric Clapton concerts and those by fellow former Yardbirds men drummer Jim McCarty and Jimmy Page (also of Led Zeppelin fame), and covered the band's reunion.
There were sidelines away from r'n'b, such as for Britpop leading lights Blur and studio work for fashion house Dior.
But Jimmy's thriving photographic business would be derailed and his life thrown into shock by ill health.
"I was ill for a long time, but keeping going, and feeling worse and worse, and not finding the time to go to the doctor. One day a doctor, who had a practice opposite and who was a customer came in and said, 'I don't like the way you are looking. I want you to come straight across to the clinic'.
"I did, and she took a sample, and sent me straight to hospital as an emergency case.
"My blood pressure was 280 over 140. The doctor in the hospital told me 'you are a dead man walking. You should not be alive with blood pressure like that'."
Unable to work, Jimmy sold his house and business.
He was diagnosed with kidney failure. "I'd had TB in my kidneys when I was young, and they told me I had only one kidney functioning, and it was failing.
"I was on dialysis. I needed a transplant, but I was told there was very little chance of a match because there were so few Asian donors."
He moved to Cornwall with his wife Anne and opened an Egyptian museum in Dobwalls in 2001.
"Don't ask me why we opened that. We just did."
The museum failed, which he blames partly on his illness. "I did not have the energy to keep an eye on it."
He split from Anne – the parting was amicable and they are still good friends – but with his health going downhill Jimmy was living in a caravan in Looe and doing part-time shelf-stacking in supermarkets when he got a call that a matching kidney had been found.
"It was a little miracle: a healthy kidney from a 20-year-old. I had the transplant at Derriford Hospital in 2010 and the surgeon told me it was a complete success. It worked perfectly from the start. I was so lucky."
He still bears the ugly scars on his arms of years of dialysis, but the transplant has transformed his life.
Although retired from the day jobs, and living quietly in a flat in Torpoint, he is well enough to put some energy into music.
He does occasional gigs with the Blues Bandits and rock outfit Fat Tuesday and he will be off later this summer to perform at the Singapore Blues Festival.
After the east Asia trip he will be eager to get back to Cornwall, though, his adored adopted homeland
"Maybe I did come to die – and I went to heaven," he grins.
Jimmy Appudurai-chua.
Comment if any?
********************
He has been pushed out of his homeland, lost his house and his wife, had a drug habit and faced death through kidney failure.
No wonder Jimmy Appudurai-chua took to playing the blues.
Blues Guitarist Jimmy Appudurai-chua (right) from Torpoint Jimmy pictured with Bryan Adams and singer Cathy Davis in 1988 (top) with The Meltones (left - Jimmy is pictured far left) and, above, one of Jimmy's photographs of Eric Clapton
But this unfailingly optimistic man plays the famously downbeat genre with a smile.
There have been enough highs among his lifetime lows to keep him cheerful.
He once knocked The Beatles off number one spot, mixed with some of the biggest names in the rock world – Eric Clapton and Bryan Adams among them – in a second career as an in-demand photographer and ran his own photo businesses that was at the forefront of a service revolution.
He shakes his head in wonder at the number of times people have gone out of their way to lift him from a low and set him on course to another high.
"I have been so lucky," he says. "It is quite amazing really."
Not at all amazing – he is one of those rare people you like as soon as you meet them. People want to help him because he is such great company: somebody with so many stories to tell but still modest and not at all world-weary. He comes across straight away as a gentle soul, utterly content with life's simple pleasures.
It's hard to picture this man with such a sunny disposition being so low that he had virtually given up on life.
He confesses, though, that his health was so bad that he came to Cornwall a dozen years ago to die.
Then, perhaps eager not to darken the mood, he corrects himself quickly.
"Well not to die, but I was very, very ill."
He enjoys good health now because, against the odds, he got the kidney transplant that was needed to transform his life. He was a particularly difficult tissue match.
Today, after the many highs and lows, he lives modestly in a small flat in Torpoint.
Jimmy still occasionally picks up his guitar to play gigs in the Plymouth area.
But every year or so he returns to his Far east birthplace to enjoy a little celebrity status at the Singapore Blues Festival.
He was born 66 years ago in the city state.
There was a whiff of scandal to the family.
"My mother, Jean, was Chinese and she broke all the rules, getting involved with a married man," he says.
"She was his mistress, which angered her whole clan. But I knew nothing about this.
"She was from mainland China and during World War Two was working in Malaysia, where my father, who was from Sri Lanka, was a doctor."
Jimmy and his two sisters, Betty (who now lives in the United States) and Minnie (now in France), saw their father once or twice a year, and believed simply that he worked away – he had a high-powered job as deputy chief medical officer with the Malaysian government.
"I only found out when I left school that he was married with another family.
"I went to Malaysia with some friends. I told my father where we would be staying, but thought I would surprise him by calling at his house – a big government-owned residence.
"I knocked on the door and asked to see him and a woman answered and said she was his wife.
"My jaw dropped open. I was so angry. I said, 'Tell him his son called to see him!' and ran off. That was so mean, the most malicious thing I have ever done."
But there was no damage done to his relationship with his father, who turned up later at the hostel where Jimmy was staying, oblivious to the previous drama. "She obviously didn't tell him, because he said nothing."
Father and son continued to have a good relationship.
Rewind a decade farther and Jimmy's status as an outsider hit home to him when he started school.
English is the official language in Singapore but young Jimmy spoke only two Chinese dialects when he went to school.
The city has a reputation as a cultural melting pot, but Jimmy, already handicapped by his language difficulties stood out even more when religion reared its head.
"It was a Catholic school – my mother was Methodist, my father was a Hindu, my grandmother was a Taoist, my uncle was a Buddhist and I lived in a Muslim village," he says, laughing.
He found a way of belonging through music. Inspired by Cliff Richard and the Shadows and US guitarist Duane Eddy, he picked up an instrument at 14 and taught himself to play.
Soon he and his schoolmates had formed a band, with a name and sound straight from the Sixties: the Meltones, complete with smart skinny suits and tunes in the Shadows/ Freddie and the Dreamers mould.
"We played a lot of gigs, but always asked for early finishes so we would not be late in bed!
"We just enjoyed the thrill of seeing our names in the Straits Times (the leading Singapore newspaper)."
After leaving school he joined Motif, a band made up of British RAF personnel – Britain still had a big presence in its former colony. This was his introduction to rhythm'n'blues. "They got me listening to the Stones, Yardbirds, Alexis Korner, the Kinks. I took the guitar away and learned it all by ear."
After a spell with his father in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and completing an engineering course, he faced a spell in uniform with the Singapore Air Force. "I had to do two years' national service," says Jimmy. "A friend told me that if I joined as a regular I could resign after six months and avoid national service.
"So that's what I did – but they wouldn't let me resign. I was stuck in for three and a half years!"
While working as a technician he was able to indulge his passion for R'n'B in a new band, the Straydogs.
They were signed to EMI's iconic Harvest label and in 1969 knocked the Beatles off the No 1 spot in Malaysia and Singapore with a self-penned tune, Freedom.
"That was a very good feeling," says Jimmy. "We made another single after that but it didn't do as well."
Nor did the Straydogs career fare well in the conformist city which was then known for its illiberal Government. "They did not approve of bands with long hair. They closed down all the venues.
"Our record was unofficially banned and only one radio station would play it, but it still got to No 1. If I wanted to play the music I liked I had to leave, really.
"I came to England in 1972 but that was a disaster. I was performing in working men's clubs in Newcastle and not getting anywhere.
"So I moved to London, and that was even worse. I got regular gigs in Chelsea but it all went on dope. It was a black period of my life."
His use of cocaine and marijuana was dragging him down and stopping him getting a proper day job.
"The only work I got was as a cleaner. One woman at a house in Hammersmith took a liking to my cleaning – one thing about being stoned is you are very thorough!
"They were very impressed that I didn't take any of the money that was lying around – I tidied it into neat piles of coins.
"She invited me back and got me to meet her husband. He invited me to a job interview and when I didn't turn up – there was a Tube strike – they phoned up to check why and sent a car round for me.Can you believe that?
Jimmy's contribution during a performance in Singapore among an audience of friends in 2015.
"His name was Michael de Semlyen and he ran the Tudor photographic processing business, based in Cricklewood.
"I started as a cleaner. After a couple of weeks they asked me to work in dispatch, then soon after they asked me run it, and then the shop-floor.
"When Tudor opened their second processing plant in Wandsworth in 1976 they asked me to manage it."
One innovation Jimmy made was to introduce a same-day service.
By 1981 he needed a break and went back to Singapore to sort out an immigration matter. Tudor created a job for him, putting him in charge of their Far East operation.
On a visit to Hong Kong he was enjoying a blues night at a club when a fellow veteran of the Singaporean rock scene, Chris Vadham, spotted Jimmy in the audience and invited him on stage to play.
Jimmy picked up a guitar for the first time in nine years and was hooked again.
Gigs followed back in Singapore and the music connection would lead him on a new direction when he returned to the UK.
Tudor had been bought out so Jimmy and three others started their own mini-lab processing in upmarket Notting Hill, home to many people from the entertainment industry.
"We were losing money and the others pulled out, but I had an idea: I put the prices up from £3.99 to £8 a film offering an exclusive service," says Jimmy. "It was a big success."
Wealthier clients liked the personal touch. Singer songwriter Annie Lennox was one, and actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, (Scarface, the Abyss and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) was another.
Musician Michael Kamen was another regular. He wrote the score for Robin Hood including one of the most successful singles of all time, (Everything I do) I Do It For You, jointly put together with performer Bryan Adams and Robert John Lange.
"I became friendly with Michael and he introduced me to Eric Clapton.
"Michael would invite me to his big Thanksgiving parties that were full of stars, and ask me to photograph them."
Soon Jimmy's work behind the lens led to him taking more time off stage. He worked for magazines and record companies, covering every visiting blues artist at the 100 Club and high-profile gigs at the Royal Albert Hall.
He photographed Eric Clapton concerts and those by fellow former Yardbirds men drummer Jim McCarty and Jimmy Page (also of Led Zeppelin fame), and covered the band's reunion.
There were sidelines away from r'n'b, such as for Britpop leading lights Blur and studio work for fashion house Dior.
But Jimmy's thriving photographic business would be derailed and his life thrown into shock by ill health.
"I was ill for a long time, but keeping going, and feeling worse and worse, and not finding the time to go to the doctor. One day a doctor, who had a practice opposite and who was a customer came in and said, 'I don't like the way you are looking. I want you to come straight across to the clinic'.
"I did, and she took a sample, and sent me straight to hospital as an emergency case.
"My blood pressure was 280 over 140. The doctor in the hospital told me 'you are a dead man walking. You should not be alive with blood pressure like that'."
Unable to work, Jimmy sold his house and business.
He was diagnosed with kidney failure. "I'd had TB in my kidneys when I was young, and they told me I had only one kidney functioning, and it was failing.
"I was on dialysis. I needed a transplant, but I was told there was very little chance of a match because there were so few Asian donors."
He moved to Cornwall with his wife Anne and opened an Egyptian museum in Dobwalls in 2001.
"Don't ask me why we opened that. We just did."
The museum failed, which he blames partly on his illness. "I did not have the energy to keep an eye on it."
He split from Anne – the parting was amicable and they are still good friends – but with his health going downhill Jimmy was living in a caravan in Looe and doing part-time shelf-stacking in supermarkets when he got a call that a matching kidney had been found.
"It was a little miracle: a healthy kidney from a 20-year-old. I had the transplant at Derriford Hospital in 2010 and the surgeon told me it was a complete success. It worked perfectly from the start. I was so lucky."
He still bears the ugly scars on his arms of years of dialysis, but the transplant has transformed his life.
Although retired from the day jobs, and living quietly in a flat in Torpoint, he is well enough to put some energy into music.
He does occasional gigs with the Blues Bandits and rock outfit Fat Tuesday and he will be off later this summer to perform at the Singapore Blues Festival.
After the east Asia trip he will be eager to get back to Cornwall, though, his adored adopted homeland
"Maybe I did come to die – and I went to heaven," he grins.
Jimmy Appudurai-chua.
Comment if any?
********************
Hi Jimmy,
Charlie Yap sent me the connection. I think like the stacks of coins you put neatly in a pile and never took them had the Good Lord decide to do exactly what you did, put you back on the pile and never took you away. Thank you for the story. Blessings Jimmy.
Andy.
https://singapore60smusic.blogspot.com/2019/08/straydogs-freedom-played-lecture.html
Content and images from Jimmy's Facebook pages.
Andy.
https://singapore60smusic.blogspot.com/2019/08/straydogs-freedom-played-lecture.html
Content and images from Jimmy's Facebook pages.
Brother Andy,
ReplyDeleteBrother Jimmy Appuduari-chua, i have known for many years.
Well read musician & must say a very easy & kind person.
Glad he made UK his home.
Besides music he is a good photographer brother Andy.
I have got some pics given to me by him on Eric Clapton etc.
He did bring to my attention on the Yard Birds to do a gig in Spore
that was in late 80's these are some memories on brother Jimmy.
Till today always in touch .
ReplyDeleteJIMMY's ONE of the *HANDFUL of TRUE BLUESMAN*...
ANDY... the last black&white photo of *the Straydogs*
Recognised my friend William, the bass-player, with the dark shades..
We played a few guest slots at Golden-Venus...
For their Sunday *t-dances*
So popular during those days.
Memories.. are made of these🙏
First watch him with Straydogs at Golden Venus,
ReplyDeletei think way back 1972.
Honestly I never really seen Jimmy play. If I did I don’t recall 😊
ReplyDeleteIt’s my age lah. These musicians are usually at least 10 to 20 years older than me!
The very few I know very well are
Rex Goh (Flybaits & Air Supply)
Lim Thiam Soon (Straydogs)
Terry Tan (Straydogs - Composer)
Danny Leong (my closest buddy)
Of course Louis Soliano and Vernon Cornelius.
And yourself 😊
I was just a kid 😅😂😅😂
Very good article.
ReplyDeleteJimmy is another one of the nice musicians that I have met.
Appeared with him on our local tv in late 60s.
We played 2 songs, one of them was “In the midnight hour”.
Group was called “Nameless” because when we when to the station we did have a name.
So the tv producer gave us that name just before recording started.
Jimmy remembers this as someone told him about this show and he remembered me.
I have a photo of us taken in the TV studio.
But I have not met Jimmy since that show.
...When we went to the station...
ReplyDelete🙏🙏🙏
In the show the keyboardist was Michael Gan
and bassist was Patrick Khong from the Mysterians
Jimmy played lead.
Strictly instrumental.
No vocals.
Thanks very much to my dear musician friends,
ReplyDeleteEach of them a knight of the Music Round Table
With medals of honour on their armours.
They answered to my call immediately.
Jimmy Appudurai will read it with pride.
Again thanks to all of you.
Jimmy my dear friend, whom I’ve known for eons.
ReplyDeleteYou have certainly been thrown with many of life’s adversities and accumulated all this “street cred” to have the blues dripping and shredding from your fingers.
Someone from above has always kept watch over and guided you.
As always, my fondest wishes to you and man, keep rockin’.
From your Six String buddy Horace.
Thank you dearest Andy.in my twilight years...
ReplyDeleteI am actually feeling contented and at peace and very grateful for everything that life has thrown at me...
I am at a stage where there is no such thing as Fear...only Peace and love and happiness xxxxxxx
🎸🎹🎵🎤🥂Bluesman Jimmy Appudurai-Chua - A Remarkable Journey :-
ReplyDeleteHey Bro' Jim ! Your Story :- what a remarkable journey you've been through. We Salute You For All You've Accomplished, Brother Jimmy. And You are still among us, your friends & loyal fans. The Almighty wants you to keep on Twanging Your Guitar & Playing The Blues, Rock And Rock & Roll.
To us, You Are Among The Handful Of Singapore Music Giants From The 60s & Beyond.
Scandals :- most of us have had our fair share. Two huge examples (I am very sure you are aware) :- Guitar Legend Eric Clapton, as a child grew up thinking that his Mum was his elder sister, and that his Grand Dad & Grand Mum were his Parents.
Guitar God Jimi Hendrix was abandoned by His Birth Parents and was brought up by his Grandma. It made Him & Eric find solace in the guitar and it turned them into what they became :- World Guitar Giants.
In many ways Bro', your journey is quite similar.
In my growing up years while paying my musical dues, I watched, admired & even copied Bands & Musicians like yourself & All The Other Great Bands From That Era. You will always be remembered as being part of Singapore's Golden Era Of Popular Music. So, Bluesman Jimmy Appudurai-Chua - We Wish You All The Best As You Continue Your Musical Journey. Just Keep At It - Playing Your Guitar. Cheers !🎤🎶🎹🎸🍻✌🏼
Thanks Horace, Michael and Jimmy for the personal notes.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that this blog is taken seriously by professional musicians like you three.
I am appreciative that you allowed me Jimmy to re-establish your story on the blog.
And Michael and Horace, another two guitar heroes for our SG flag to flutter and fly.
Thanks a million Michael.
ReplyDeleteYou and Horace too have done so much for the scene.
Love you guys.
And Horace thanks so much for your plaudits.
Blessings xx
The Blues was the lament of the souls of those burdened with sorrow and hardships and from this lament grew great music and musicians. Jimmy your story is in the same annals of the many greats. Keep your fingers on the strings and your eyes to the heavens and know that we are by your side living your musical journey and life. Cheers buddy!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Cedric.
ReplyDeleteYour comments are sincere and genuine, they tell truths like music from the strings of guitar chords, melodious and gentle to the ears.
A ma so humble, a person so polite with his words... Never boastful, egoistic nor hurtful. You shouldn't be on Facebook Jimmy. 🙂
ReplyDeleteJimmy Appudurai-chua
Andy Young I don't. Understand Andy???
Andy Young
Jimmy Appudurai-chua! You should be represented in a biography of your own, in a thick, hard cover book where copies can be found in all the libraries under the Singapore Musicians section. Facebook is just too commonplace. Just my personal opinion. And I am not being patronising...
Jimmy Appudurai-chua
Andy Young you are too. Kind dear friend... just a kampong boy who reached out to try to understand the struggles of a music life and realised the difficulties of.
Surviving
bless you
xxxxxxxxx
Hi Andy, this is Ivan Thomasz, the admin of the So Happy: 50 Years of Singapore Rock group on Facebook. May I have your permission to reprint this article by Martin Freeman as part of our tribute to the late and great Jimmy-Appudurai-Chua who passed away yesterday?
ReplyDeleteI would be very grateful if you did. Thank you. My email follows: eklektro68@gmail.Com.
Hi Ivan,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about copyrights issues because it was given me by Jimmy himself. Apparently he had permission from the writer directly.
I am ok personally but best if you check with those familiar with this topic.
Thanks for the visit.
Sincerely.
Andy Young
ReplyDeleteA big shock this morning. Suddenly he's gone. Goodbye Jimmy. Bless your soul in heaven. We're really very sad. Condolences to everyone in the family.
SIMILAR COMMENTS BELOW ALSO APPEAR IN A LATER POSTING/TRIBUTE ON JIMMY:
Colin Colin
So sorry to hear of your fellow musician friend. My deepest condolences 🙏 to the family.
Andy Young
Colin Colin hi, very good on the guitar. Truly blues guy. Sad.
Jalani Mohamed
RIP JIMMY
Rose Khoo
RIP Jimmy Appudurai-chua
Hawk Chen
RIP 🙏
Manny Said
A great man, with a good heart and a massive talent. A sudden news to comprehend. Rest In Peace Jimmy my good man. You’ll be missed dearly.
Ericbronson Wong
TᖇᑌᒪY ՏO Տᗩᗪ TO ᕼᗴᗩᖇ Տᑌᑕᕼ ᑌᑎᗷᗴᒪIᗴᐯᗩᗷᒪᗴ ᑎᗴᗯՏ,, I ᑕOᑌᒪᗪ ᕼᗩᖇᗪᒪY ᗷᗴᒪIᗴᐯᗴ Տᑌᑕᕼ TᗴᖇᖇIᗷᒪᗴ ᑎᗴᗯՏ,,ᑕᗩᑎ IT ᗷᗴ Tᖇᑌᗴ ᑕOᑌᒪᗪ IT ᗷᗴ ᒍᑌՏT ᗩ ᗷᗩᗪ ᗪᖇᗴᗩᗰ Oᖇ ᗩ ᘜᕼᗩՏTᒪY ᒍOKᗴ,,!! Iᖴ IT IՏ ᑎOT ᗩ ᑭᖇᗩᑎK,,I ᗯIᒪᒪ ᗩᒪᗯᗩYՏ ᖇᗴᗰᗴᗰᗷᗴᖇ ᒍIᗰᗰY ᗩՏ ᗩ ᗰᗴᒪᗩᑎᑕᕼOᒪY ՏOᖴT ՏᑭOKᗴᑎ ᖴᖇIᗴᑎᗪ ᗯITᕼ ᗩ ᕼᗴᗩᖇT Oᖴ ᘜOᒪᗪ,,ᗰᗩY ᕼIՏ ՏOᑌᒪ ᖇᗴՏT Iᑎ ᑭᗴᗩᑕᗴ 🌿🌿💐💐🕊️🕊️😢😢🙏🙏
Ivor Lesslar
ReplyDeleteRIP JIMMY 🙏🌹
Poh Huat Tng
Rip Jimmy.
Irene Yap
Just woke up to see this shocking news. Sad news indeed! He was such a nice gentle soul. RIP Jimmy!
Davy Chan
RIP 🙏 Amen
Andy Young
Thank you all for your comments on Jimmy. I am just hoping our local SG newspapers will tribute him too. I think he deserves the accolade.
Ericbronson Wong
Andy Young YᗴՏ ᒍIᗰᗰY IՏ Oᑎᗴ Oᖴ ᗪ ᗰᗩᑎY OTᕼᗴᖇՏ TᕼᗩT ᗪᗴՏᗴᖇᐯᗴՏ Տᑌᑕᕼ ᗩᑎ ᕼOᑎOᑌᖇ,,
Terence Lee
RIP
Peter Lim
ReplyDeleteRIP, Jimmy .... rest well in heaven ... farewell!!
Freda Hanum
Indeed a big shock...Just can't believe it....may his soul RIP dear Jimmy Appudurai-chua 🙏🥲
Kali Dass S
R I P Jimmy
Elly Gwee
Oh noooooo....Uncle Jimmy passed on?? What happen ?
Steve Goh
R. I. P Jimmy...
My deepest condolences to d family.
Rocker Lee
RIP
Fred Ching
Brother Andy, appreciate your update and posting of our dear friend Jimmy. Only the tender mercy of God did I ever get to meet my idol, with a group of musician friends and I thank him for his contributions to our Singapore music scene with The Straydogs. Been thinking about Jimmy since his passing with this msg..
Jimmy is special and precious, and will always send me birthday greetings year after year. Beside, I wanted to remember and show what a wonderful person he was by sharing this b/d greeting and an update and some issues of his health to me in January 2023.
From our conversation, I gather he’s ill in health for sometime. Jimmy is well-loved from the outpouring tributes seen, as I write. He’s a wonderful person and had a gentle spirit, shown kindness and humility in his many posts. God bless your soul..
R.I.P. Jimmy
😢
Andy Young
Fred Ching hello. Yes, sad indeed. Thanks for sharing. We were in touch too using WA but he was always an amicable friend. I'm sure he's happier up there.
Koh Sui Pang
RIP Jimmy