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), SUDI MAMPIR !
[JERRY MURAD, BROTHER OF DANIEL ABIDIN, HAS PASSED AWAY TODAY, 1ST NOVEMBER, 2023, ACCORDING TO HIS WIFE'S MESSAGE FROM W.A. CONDOLENCES TO HER & FAMILY.
The article below was written some years ago by Jerry's niece, Crystal.
A labour of love: Growing up with Jerry Murad of The Dukes.
By Crystal Abidin.
"My father has five brothers and two sisters, which makes for a whole lot of cousins for my sister and I to play with when we were growing up (and every Raya is a mini logistical nightmare, but that’s another story for another time).
Uncle Murad is secretly my favourite one.
Many veteran musicians in Singapore know Jerry Murad as the front man and lead guitarist of the 1960's band, The Dukes. My father, Zainal Abidin, was the bassist – he has several magazine covers and vinyl covers from his treasure trove to prove that they were once young, fine, eligible young men.
While many great musicians of his cohort have gone on to fulltime jobs in other sectors, Jerry Murad is one of the few musicians who has managed to maintain a career (and raise a family of five) as a professional musician for over five decades.
Here is a snapshot of his life. I know Jerry Murad intimately. He is the uncle who showered me with the most gifts when I was growing up..."
Chatting with Daniel [formerly Zainal] Abidin is like playing facial hide and seek. With his very serious demeanor, since he was a Captain in our local army, the listener will never know if the man is joking or otherwise.
Yes, we wanna hear behind-the-scene stories.
Here he is, providing unknown insights about his days with his very famous Dukes, one of the 10 top bands from our Singapore 60's music scene. Don't miss reading them. Gems, they are.
Story 1 - Electrocuted On Electric Guitar
''During one of The Dukes music practices at my home in Paya Lebar, every member was clapping and cheering me for showing some fantastic movements with my bass guitar. All of them thought I was imitating Elvis the Pelvis. It went on for a while until my brother Jerry Murad realised that I was actually in the process of being electrocuted. Our guitar cables were probably faulty or not properly earthed.
He rushed to the main switch to turn off the electricity. Thank God for his quick action. Otherwise I would have suffered like what John Rostill experienced; the late bass player of The Shadows was electrocuted when he was alone with his bass guitar while in the process of writing a new tune. Luckily, like Rostill, I wasn't hurt.
During the incident, The Dukes had a line-up where Richard Young was on drums, Safdar Hussein on rhythm and my brother Jerry Murad on lead. Richard's brother Fernando Young was our singer. Later he became the band manager when Bobby Lambert joined the band doing vocals.''
[John Rostill -it is uncertain what he died of.]
First Bend in the River
The Dukes with Bobby Lambert
One of the best recordings, personally.
Video YouTube - weng 2c channel
Story 2 - Messing in the Mess - Band Banned
''In the 70's, there was gig in the British Officers Mess at Fort Canning Centre when The Dukes arrived late as the van transporting the musical instruments broke down during the journey to the Mess.
They 'punished' the band for arriving late by suspending all of us for three months from playing there. But Fernando Young managed to get the band to play at the same Mess the following week. What did he do?
He changed our band name for that particular gig. So we were not known as TheDukes that evening. And since we had a few sets of different coloured outfits, we did not used the same clothes as we did the previous week. We managed to do the gig without any problem and the evening went well.
Up till today, we never knew if the patrons realised we were actually the same band. Fernando was a clever manager.''
Chatting With Daniel Abidin.
It will continue for some time.
Watch out for others.
Images/Articles - Copyrights Reserved - Daniel Abidin.
[2] DANIEL ABIDIN AKA ZAINAL ABIDIN HAD PASSED AWAY THIS MORNING, FRIDAY 5TH APRIL, 2024, ACCORDING TO A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM A FAMILY MEMBER. CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY. RIP DANIEL.
[1] JERRY MURAD, BROTHER OF DANIEL ABIDIN, HAS PASSED AWAY TODAY, 1ST NOVEMBER, 2023, ACCORDING TO HIS WIFE'S MESSAGE FROM W.A. CONDOLENCES TO HER & FAMILY. RIP JERRY.
I have known Captain Z (he loves this pangkat) since Celestial Room days and backstage at the National Theatre and other venues. We met again a few years ago and we kept in touch through WhatsApp. Zainal is another social butterfly, active with his many Makan Groups and made me a member of one. [He is now Daniel Abidin, and wishes to be addressed so.] Crystal Abidin is his daughter, a PhD teaching in an Australian U. She wrote an article about her dad and uncle (Jerry Murad) for this blog. Of late she has written a book: 'Internet Celebrity, Understanding Fame Online', available soon. The Captain has obliged, in concise form, the Dukes story for this blog, since many of my overseas readers have asked about them.
Thank you, Daniel. Great that we have kept in touch for so long.
Captain D
Brother,
In Jan 1962, a group of schoolboys joined the boy scout movement as their ECA under the name The James Cook Patrol in Outram Secondary School. There were altogether 4 such patrols in the schoolboy scouts group. The James Cook Patrol leader was then also the Troop Leader under the coordination of two school teachers.
He was Murad (now known as Jerry Murad, image in red shirt) who had completed school but was asked to come back to help the two teachers. Daniel Abidin was the youngest at secondary one. Four of the others were in secondary two, and two others in secondary three (Safdar Hussein and Richard Young).
They always had campfires, and sometimes combined with other schools for the event (one of the schools being Gan Eng Seng Secondary School). At one of the campfires, guitars came out and there was a sing-along session and an idea was born. They decided to play music at all gatherings and called themselves The James Cook Boys. They enjoyed their music sessions so much that they decided to enter the Nestle Talentime as a comedy sketch group together with music. They won the first prize and was encouraged to have proper instruments and line-up.
All practice and rehearsal were first conducted at Richard Young home at Purvis Street. In 1963, Richard’s brother Fernando Young decided to join the group as the Lead Singer, and also became the band manager. The James Cook Boys decided to play at the RAF and British Clubs on Saturday nights, and the group was renamed The Dukes. Fernando than focus only as the manager and the first regular gig the group had was Sunday T-Dance in the afternoon and the then Prince’s Garni Hotel at Orchard Road. More locations followed after that. One of them was in the Celestial Room, across the road to the old Cathay Cinema.
A YouTube interview with Daniel Abidin. He is, as he explains in this video, a very happy man. The first line up was Jerry Murad leader/lead guitar, Richard Young drums, Safdar Hussein rhythm guitar, Zainal Abidin bass guitar and the four Secondary Two boys percussions. The first few performances were for the school annual concerts. Their first music was Apache which was so famous then recorded by The Shadows, a famous group from Britain. Daniel became the President of the school's Literary and Dramatic Society and the James Cook Boys were always called back to play until he completed his Secondary Four.
The repertoire was enlarged and practices were also done at Jerry Murad’s home at Paya Lebar. Those days The Dukes played mostly instrumental songs which were suitable for dancing. A time came when The Dukes needed a regular singer. They met Bobby Lambert, a member of the British army based in Singapore. He was the first regular singer the band had.
At that time Prince’s Garni T-Dance was always packed, while down to the other end of Orchard Road, the Checkmates with the Cyclones and Vernon Cornelius were packing them in at the Golden Venus. Safdar very soon left for further studies in the UK. Very quickly Jerry managed to get Zainal Akib (now Known as Syed Marvin, as he idolizes Hank Marvin of The Shadows) to replace Safdar. He and Jerry switched about on lead and rhythm.
The Dukes managed to upgrade their guitars and amplifiers with Fenders equipment bought from T.M.A at High Street. In February 1965, Fernando was responsible for arranging our equipment for the Rolling Stones performance at the Singapore Badminton Stadium at Guillemard Road. This was testimony that The Dukes has very good musical equipment at that time.
We were very hot in the 60s with The Quests, The Trailers, The Silver Strings and other bands. Our main Sunday performance was at the old Prince Garni Hotel at Orchard Road. It is local band history that The Dukes had their picture on the Christmas issue cover of Her World magazine in the 1960's. (You can find these stories by clicking on Labelsbelow.)
This picture was taken exactly 50 years ago at the Pasir Labar Camp, then SAFTI where a bass player of The Dukes (right) was commissioned as an army officer of the SAF. We celebrated our 50th anniversary at a club near The Padang on 7 March 2018. Awesome!
Every Saturday night we played at the RAF and British Army Clubs all over Singapore. We have not played together for more than 30 years. These last few years we have appeared in quite a number of concerts, namely the ones at the National Library for Seniors, at Pek Kio CC, then during a charity dinner with Vernon, The Meltons where Jerry and Neufaces also performed and lately at the big gig in the Kallang Theatre with 5 other top local guitar bands.
We have continued doing what we love until today.
Written by:
Daniel Abidin
March 2018.
[Recent 2024 change of name on all postings.]
If you take some information for your memory essays or documentaries, at least credit me.
Allan Thompson, John Cher, Michael Bangar, Henri Gann,
Crystal Abidin, Joey Koh, Fabian Foo, Steve Farram, Horace Wee.
I have a dream, a fantasy To help me through reality And my destination Makes it worth the while... (Abba) The number of supporters for this blog is staggering. Readers and technical know-how from social networking services include: Blogspot You Tube Google+ Twitter WhatsApp emails John Cher's Facebook Larry Lai's WhatsApp Because of these connections, this blog has blossomed by 20,000 viewers, from a mere 36,000 monthly reads in October to 56,000 by December. Big for a small niche like Singapore pops and its influence. This year the writings, You Tube videos and local 60's music information from: Allan Thompson (UK) John Cher Michael Bangar Henri Gann Trekkers (US) Horace Wee Steve Farram (Aus) CYLin Laurence Lim Su Go (Aus) Joey Koh Crystal Abidin (Aus) Fabian Foo
Audie Ng Mike n Herb (Aus) Happy Tay (Can)
and others were contributing factors to the success of this blog. Names are not in any order and two ladies wish to remain anonymous. Let me know if I left your name out 😔.
Larry Lai, Audie Ng, CYLin, Su Go, Happy Tay, Laurence Lim
Mike and Herb Of course when the big guns came in to support both directly and indirectly, the blog had a blast. Stephen Fry Scott Page Russell Hitchcock Rick Astley Rex Goh and local stars like: Dick Lee Jack Neo Moses Lim Chua En Lai and Silver Strings'Singapore TV appearances helped much to boost the ratings. Comments from regulars too played a great part towards increasing readership. A whole lot of you guys, thank you.
Less texting? Yes but more blog reading, especially this blog. I dare say, no other active Singapore 60's music stories than what you can find from here. Short of boasting 😮... You can see the wonders of a fairy tale You can see the future even if you fail I believe in angels Something good in everything I see...
Thanks to local and international readers, contributors, friends and fellow countrymen. You made my dream. Happy New Year 2017.
Songwriters: ANDERSSON, BENNY GORAN BROR / ULVAEUS, BJOERN K.
Crystal Abidin is an anthropologist, ethnographer, and percussionist who grew up in Singapore and now lives in Perth. She used to play classical percussion in orchestras and now sings harmony in church. Reach her at wishcrys.com
This young lady is completing her PhD studies and we 'met' on her website. I wrote to ask if she could write an article about Singapore music in the 60's. She agreed and I must thank her for the kindness to do so. Find out what she reveals and who she really is:
A labour of love: Growing up with Jerry Murad of The Dukes.
By Crystal Abidin.
My father has five brothers and two sisters, which makes for a whole lot of cousins for my sister and I to play with when we were growing up (and every Raya is a mini logistical nightmare, but that’s another story for another time).
Uncle Murad is secretly my favourite one.
Many veteran musicians in Singapore know Jerry Murad as the front man and lead guitarist of the 1960's band, The Dukes. My father, Zainal Abidin, was the bassist – he has several magazine covers and vinyl covers from his treasure trove to prove that they were once young, fine, eligible young men.
While many great musicians of his cohort have gone on to fulltime jobs in other sectors, Jerry Murad is one of the few musicians who has managed to maintain a career (and raise a family of five) as a professional musician for over five decades.
Here is a snapshot of his life.
I know Jerry Murad intimately.
He is the uncle who showered me with the most gifts when I was growing up.
As a child, I remember weekly visits to Nenek's house where Uncle Murad and his family live. There was a glass cabinet by the window in the living room, in which my uncle kept all his musical scores, meticulously filed and labeled.
I soon learnt that if I lurked around for long enough while intently peering through the glass door, Uncle Murad would come over, ask what I was “interested in”, and offer to hand on another one of his precious scores to me.
I never really asked for anything out rightly, because I was a polite child. But seeing as how a good third of my current collection of scores were gifts from my uncle, I guess being sneaky and patient pays off.
When my sister later started recording herself on YouTube and playing at gigs, she inherited a couple of guitars from Uncle Murad. It would have been nice if he had a few spare marimbas or vibraphones laying around for me (FYI Uncle Murad, my birthday is in March).
Uncle Murad is also the resident one-man band at every one of my cousins’ weddings.
It is almost a family ritual for Uncle Murad to rock up with his mics, e-guit, portable amps, and miscellaneous electronica at every family function, big or small. He has his signature batik shirts, a badass ponytail, and a library of song dedications for everyone. It only gets embarrassing when at weddings he makes song dedications to all the “single nieces and nephews”, wishing we would “find love and happiness… maybe at the wedding”.
I also know Jerry Murad professionally.
Some time in 2009, I sat down with Uncle Muradand interviewed him about his life as a professional musician for a school project. Today, I revisit these fieldnotes to share some snippets of our conversation. Crystal: So! How did it all begin?
JM: My scouts days were the best of my life… James Cook Petrol Boy Scouts. We were so famous in school! During camping, hiking, canoeing, we always sang our own songs, so during one campfire, we formed The Dukes, our own band. Then we got famous and signed a record with a record company), and played for many years. But then we grew up, some migrated, some had to work
Crystal: You’ve done this for over fifty years. Is it tough being a professional musician in Singapore?
JM: I already know from the start that it’s gonna be tough in the music industry, you know? I was prepared for it. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I just have to face the difficulties. After all, I’m earning money for my passion you know? How many people can say they love their jobs? For me, my passion became my job.
Crystal: Do you think musicians are sometimes under-valued or underpaid?
JM: Well… Sometimes I play past the allocated time, or play even though they cannot afford to pay me my rates. I’m quite flexible, but only because to me the music business is not all about money. If you play solely to earn a living, you will be miserable. I always go all the way, I give everything I’ve got. I’m really just playing because I love music.
The Dukes withSelina and Rhumba de Havana, two of my favourite hits. Video by Malaysiaboleh Crystal: How do you maintain relations with your clients?
JM: Sometimes my clients are Chinese… so I will secretly prepare a Chinese song to sing without telling them. If it’s for old people, I memorize some Hokkien songs that they all like. When they see a Malay putting in effort to make their event memorable, they will remember me.
Crystal: Has age affected your business?
JM: Asia is very different, they think old people are useless. In the US, you see all these old men, they walk on stage with their walking sticks…these black people…but once they take out their instruments…magic! They are so skilled you know! But in Asia, people just see your appearance first…
Crystal: Any gig that was particularly eventful?
JM: I played for the Hong Kong-China handover... But I played for two bands! My big band and combo band… I was the only one, what a good experience. Before midnight when we played, we were playing for the British… then after midnight, I was still playing, but now for China… who else can say they have played for two countries in one night? I watched the royal queens yacht passing… cruising to England… hearing the bells ringing at midnight, like the last bastion of the British empire… then I saw the red flags marching in, choreographed so beautifully… really blessed with the experience.”
Crystal: Do you have plans for retirement?
JM: I don’t want to stop playing. I want to die with a guitar in my hand, and maybe ‘go down’ to jam with MJ (Michael Jackson) and Elvis!”
