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 !
Showing posts with label Hiroshi Deguchi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hiroshi Deguchi. Show all posts
The hard copy newspapers that we read used to be slotted under solid main doors at our shophouse, so being the first to wake up while waiting for the school bus at twilight morn, I would be the first to receive it and flip through the pages. Literally, "first-hand news".
Sometimes if I opened the door and waited for the copy to arrive I would meet the polite Indian gentleman handing me one.
"Hello! Good morning!" he would usually announce himself in his usual polite and gentle tone. "You going to school huh? Must study hard!" in impeccable English. Checking his load on the two wheeler, he had newspapers in English, Chinese and possibly in Malay and Tamil too.
Some people, especially seniors, still read their
news from the papers; delivered to their homes:
landed-property or apartments.
"Thank you sir!" I would answer, "You have a great morning too!"
That's how we got our news delivered then.
Now for the surprise.
You think it's not happening today? Yes it is! We still get our newspapers delivered by the vendor, direct to our home. But I hardly meet him because he delivers his papers at about five or six in the morning and I was told that most of his clientele are seniors.
Then again we are living in a brave new 2024 world and many people are reading their news from media outlets on the Internet and like the term hard-copy news is being read on-line. With a touch of the fingers, news pieces appear on the smart phones that we carry.
So I have been told I am backward and out of touch. Hmm! 😊
How do you read your news? Do tell and why?
A newspaper vendor delivering a copy
The Rolling Stones with their composition, 'Yesterday's Papers', sang:"Living a life of constant change, Every day means the turn of a page, Yesterday's papers are such bad news, Same thing applies to me and you..."
How the news is read today.
Rolling Stones: 'Yesterday's Papers'
YouTube video from: Wolfierouz
'Get Your Paper' [The Newspaper Song]
By Eddie Fisher.
YouTube Video from: Eddie Fisher - Topic
Hiroshi Deguchi Shares His Papers with Sakura.
Hiroshi Deguchi and the late Sakura
who passed away not too long ago.
Lying down on my side on the floor, I open the newspaper with my head on my arm. This is the way I read the newspaper delivered to home every morning. But before that, I had to fight over reading the paper first with my dog Sakura and won.
Andy Young
Hiroshi Deguchi, Thanks Hiroshi for your very humorous and cute experience. Apparently Sakura is still in your thoughts... and the connection is still strong. Appreciate your photograph too. Just shows how close you and family are with Sakura. You bring life to the blog too with your stories. ARIGATO GOZAIMAZU.
The people below have either appeared, contributed articles or commented on this blog. All comments are new and were received within these months in 2024.
Thanks to the folks below who did. Appreciate the recognition this blog receives.
JOHN KLASS [RADIO DJ: MEDIACORP GOLD 905]
"Andy Young! Keep up the great work on your blog
I enjoy reading it. It’s always a great trip. 😊👌🏻"
DANNY KOH [PIANIST/LRSM, FLCM]
"Thank you Andy. Wow!! I'm truly amazed at your blogs.
You jogged my memories. Yes, the photos and stories
reminded me of the good times!"
HENRY CHUA [BASSIST/'QUESTS']
"Andy, Your blog must be the most informative on the music
scene. I check it often. Congratulations! 🙏🙏🙏 👏👏👏".
LESLIE WILSON JOSEPH [MUSICIAN/GUITARIST]
"I love your articles. It's a history lesson for me."
STEPHEN HAN [SINGAPORE/CONTRIBUTING WRITER]
"This is Andy Young aka Andy Lim who is not only a wonderful singer but also a prolific writer. Do visit his music of the 60's blog and you’ll like it immediately. It contains interesting and good information of local and international recording stars. You won’t be bored because there are quizzes for you to solve."
Danny Koh: I Wish You Luck
YouTube Video: ktjong
HIROSHI DEGUCHI [JAPAN/CONTRIBUTING WRITER]
"Hi Andy, I am always honoured to be on your blog.
I always respect your country and its achievements."
DENNIS NG [SINGER/DANCER/CONTRIBUTING WRITER]
"Hi Andy, Thank you very much for your blog. You have showcased many in the music scene in Singapore and there’s never a dull moment reading the various stories of different people. Once again, thank you for your great effort and keep up the good work!"
"Comment is from my friend, a top local lawyer
and accomplished guitarist," says HAPPY TAY
[VANCOUVER ELVIS PRESLEY, BC. CANADA].
"Andy Young is probably the only one in Singapore that is keeping Music Memorabilia in Singapore alive and fluttering, as many of our generation have reached an age who treasure precious memories of our past. Kudos to him. His site will be worth a lot in time to come. Please convey my good wishes to Andy. When you next come back to Singapore, we could get him together."
ELLA TAN [BLOG READER]. ILLUSTRATION
"I have to write you here, but I have to tell you that you always share great posts. I was fascinated by your great contributions and your wonderful pictures. God bless you.
Always so positive, always so honest, here's a music and home maker I met at a media site a few years ago. Readers can check Hiroshi-san's other postings on this blog by clicking his name under LABELS below the article.
Hiroshi Deguchi From Japan says:
"I became interested in Singapore when I happened to visit there for the first time in 1981. So attracted by Singaporeans that I had been eager to learn anything Singaporean and national songs, too.
When I first heard the song. I thought it a little too intrusive. I would have hated it if our government had done the same. We should not have been pushed, I thought. But soon I started to think those songs were necessary for people who have different ideas and origins like Singapore to become one.
I was there every summer in August, a week or so after the National Day Parade, so those National songs infiltrated me. I learned them by heart. It is not easy for me to say which song I like the best but 'Stand Up For Singapore' is one of the best surely."
Author: Hiroshi Deguchi.
Thanks so much Hiroshi-san. Comments are welcome.
This picture of Hiroshi has just been taken today,
11 August 2024, wearing his 'Majullah Singapura' T-Shirt
Hiroshi Deguchi [from Japan/Spain], is an old FB friend who wrote about his own 60s music experience in Singapore and at the places he studied and visited.
Now read another one of his letters about his Tokyo University music club personality, Makoto Kuboto who produced, in collaboration, two of Dick Lee's well-known musicals.
Hiroshi, Arigatou gozaimasu – ありがとう ございます
Makoto Kubota
Producer, Engineer, Musician, Writer.
Hiroshi Deguchi mentioned:
"I fondly remember a long time ago my wife and I went up to Fukuoka from Kumamoto where we lived those days, to see Dick Lee's Asia Major tour. It was almost full house although I didn't think he was so well known in Fukuoka. It was in 1991, a few months before our first daughter was born.
Dick Lee: Asia Major
[1990]
Orientalism
[1991]
Two of the productions, with Makoto Kubota, by
Singapore's Dick Lee in the early 90's.
I have many things to remember about his show. One of the things I found was his album, Asia Major was produced by the guy who was in the same music club at the same university in Kyoto as myself. His name is Kubota Makoto, one year senior to me and the most musical. I remember!
He could play any instrument; he was often asked to help other groups. He specialized in Bossa Nova, at the time playing flute but also a wood-bass player for a Peter, Paul and Mary type band. Sometimes he's a keyboardist for a jazz group. I hadn't seen or heard about him since graduation. But his name came back to me suddenly when I went to see the concert. By the way I belonged to the group which specialized in playing Shadows numbers at the time..."
Nojiri Lake @ Nagano Prefecture [1968]
[I found this picture taken at the club camp in the summer of 1968 at Nojiri Lake in Nagano prefecture. I am just behind Kubota [yellow], standing slightly shorter.
I called some people who had belonged to the club named "Lilac Rainbows" intending to get more information about Kubota but so far no success. I can see faces who had played Bossa Nova with him and who played the bass. I did some of the Shadows and Ventures numbers.]
This piece was written by
Hiroshi Deguchi in 2022.
With his wife & pet dog.
Andy's Japan trip from Tokyo < South-Eastwards to
< Osaka < Hiroshima <Fukuoka in 2007.
Andy replied:
"Gee. thanks Hiroshi for the story. it's a very interesting tale indeed. My wife and I were in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka [image] in 2007 and enjoyed our stay in these cities. The trains we travelled in were fabulous.
You have revived an interest in me regarding Kubota Makoto, who also produced Dick Lee's other musical, Orientalism. Hiroshi has other articles written on this blog. Check his name under Labels below."
Makoto Kubota & The Sunset Gang – Dixie Fever (1977)
You Tube Video from: Terminal Passage.
Dick Lee: Asia Major [1990]
YouTube Video By: Famous or Forgotten Music
If you take information from this article for your own use,
at least credit the blog and me because copying is stealing.
withhis wife & pet, writes on the spirit of Christmas...
UP TO 1,400 VIEWS, 24 COMMENTS
Thank you Hiroshi for telling an honest tale and
the rugged truth about 70's Europe.
Hiroshi, the young student in Stockholm,
in the early 1970's,enjoying his outdoor stunt.
I went to Hamburg after I finished working at Lappis Restaurant in Stockholm. I stayed there for three months from October to the end of December. I was quite depressed by the winter weather there. It is very difficult to tell my friends what the Swedish winter is like if they haven't experienced living there in winter. It is uncomfortable, cold, lonely, dark and gray, gloomy and depressing. All those words are associated with the winter of the northern country. The days are short and getting shorter and shorter. It is light only a few hours a day. The daybreak is about 9 or 10 o'clock and the sun sets around 2. You are really lucky if you can see the sun shining in the sky. The skies are overcast every day, which makes you down. People can't afford to be cheerful, friendly and sociable. Even ice seems warmer than the feelings people get in winter. Sorry for those expressions. But this is what I tell people here about the winter back there.
Former restaurant where he used to work.
At this time of the year, whenever I look back over the days I was in Stockholm, I always remember the Christmas I had there. It still lives vividly in my memory. I don't know how to put it. It was a cold, lonely but heartwarming Christmas. Still full of wonder. I understood how much Christmas means to Christian people and how much it changed the people.
As I mentioned that Stockholm winter was terrible and made you feel more dead than alive. So was the atmosphere of the kitchen in Lappis. The people I worked with there were all foreigners, poor foreigners. They left their home for some reason. I could see they were not happy in their homelands and now struggling to make a living.
The students' dormitory in Stockholm where Hiroshi lived.
It is hard to be a foreign labor in other countries. Living and working in foreign country and traveling to foreign places are two different things. If you travel to other countries for a short time, you may get a warm welcome. Most people you meet are nice and kind to you. But once you start living or working there, things are by no means easy. You don't get respected. You may feel a sense of outcast. The people in the kitchen were like that. They could never afford to be cheerful and friendly.
There were five people working on the night shift, including myself. One of the two cooks was a black American who was extremely quiet and rarely talked, except to ask me to bring dishes, to cut onions into slices. The other was Rubo, I still remember his name. He was middle aged, originated from Yugo-slavia taking his wife and a daughter. He was very temperamental. When he was in a good mood, he was humming and singing. But he took his spite out on us by shouting at us and throwing eggs at us when he was in a bad mood.
Kitchen workers with student Hiroshi.
A man who I washed dishes with was from Bulgaria. He and his wife had not been in Sweden for a long time. He couldn't speak Swedish. He was a good and tough guy, but sometimes he sighed to himself and said that it was an unfair world. He didn't talk much.
Then there was a young woman I didn't care for very much. She was from Romania. She came hard on us. She seems to look down on anyone who can not speak Swedish. As a cashier, being entitled to be in charge of the restaurant at night, she seemed to feel a need to act superior to others. So I kept her at a distance.
Of course we were not close. We just worked in the same place and bye-bye when the day's work was over. We never felt we were a team, never thought we would do one same thing together. We knew hardly anything about each other nor wanted we.
Getting to know his environment, Hiroshi moves
around with folks he has learnt to live with.
But a miracle occurred. On Christmas eve, we closed the restaurant rather early, about 10 o'clock. But strangely enough, no one left the work. I wondered why. As i was about to leave, I was stopped and told to stay by someone. I don't remember what went on. But when I realized, I found myself mingling among all the people, sitting around the corner of the kitchen and watching the people smiling warmly. That was the first time we had sat side by side, face to face. I even repeated after Dormitory, a Bulgarian man who said Christmas prayer. The air was filled with happiness, friendliness and made the place seem brighter and warmer.
We didn't have a Christmas dinner but Bulgarian nan's wife came over and joined us bringing some sweets. Everyone was smiling. Rubo's wife and kid joined, too. That was the first time I had seen them laugh together, even the young woman who was always sourpuss. I wondered what happened to us. The party was just like lonely people get together to celebrate Christmas. I guess they wanted to celebrate Christmas like everyone else. They needed someone to share the Christmas joy.
I still think it was a miracle that Christmas brought. It was the most impressive Christmas I have ever had in my life.
Then I quit there just before New Year's day and sailed from a port on the outskirts of Stockholm for Hamburg.
From Hiroshi Deguchi.
[Come to think of it, it was a blue, blue Christmas for Hiroshi then. But that little perk at the end, meeting as a group, with sweets as presents and nothing more, was a miracle! I can agree with that, considering... Andy.]
Below is a letter from Mr Hiroshi Deguchi whom I met on Facebook. He is a friendly gentleman and willing to share his pop music experience when he was in Singapore. He also explained how a particular Japan pop chart radio-broadcast was not influenced by any recording company. Interesting indeed. He looks like Jackie Chan don't you think? Thanks so much, Hiroshi.
Hi Andy, It's so nice to hear from you. I have never lived in Singapore but I'm very interested in Singaporean pop music history. I live in Japan, in Shimonoseki City, that is the southwestern end of Honshu. The nearer big town is Fukuoka. It was in 1991 when we went to Fukuoka to see the Dick Lee concert. During my early years, I stayed in *Granada for a few months when I was 22 years old. I am much older now. I have a lot of happy memories of my younger days there and I am still trying to look for the people I made friends with. *This is the poster I had put up on the walls in Granada, Spain. So far no success.
Translation: "I'm a Japanese man looking for my elderly friends. You know someone?"
I visited Singapore last summer for the first time in 15 years. I was away from the city so long but I didn't feel out of place because I stayed abreast of what is going on in the country; thanks to the internet. I first went to Singapore back in 1981 as a tourist and became interested in the island. The more I learned about it the more I got caught up with its pop music culture.
The picture above was some 30 years ago. I was half compelled to go up on the stage and play "Rock 'n' Roll Music". It was at Europa. I pretended to play the keyboard. It was one of my happy memories on the southern island. I like the group very much. It seemed just like yesterday. We enjoyed the sing-along with Rod Stewart's "I Don't Wanna Talk About It". We sang with the band at the top of our voices. That was at Europa at Changi East Coast, the most exciting 'live' hours at that time. Now a little about our western pop scene in Japan. In February of '65, I was busy preparing for the entrance exam to junior high school. I haven't started playing the guitar which my mother bought me at a pawnshop. I still have this Yamaha-made instrument. Around the time when many young Singaporeans were interested in what was happening during the Rolling Stones Concert at SBH on Guillemard Road, simultaneously, in another part of Asia, "I Feel Fine" was at the top of the pops.
We had a hit parade radio program called, "Popular Requests by 95 Million People". It was most popular and not influenced by any record company. The population of Japan was 95 million at that time. I remember waiting anxiously for the evening when the program was broadcast. It is not on the air anymore. But I am sure a great number of people my age have a lot of happy, impressive memories of the program. The Pop Request by 95 Million People List: 1. I Feel Fine, the Beatles 2. Constantly, Cliff Richard 3. La Plus Belle Aller Danser, Sylvie Vartan 4. Long Tall Sally, the Beatles 5. 500 Miles, Peter, Paul and Mary 6. Un Buco Nella Sabbia, Mina 7. Angelita, Los Marcellos
'Diamond Head' by the Ventures. YouTube Video by Robert Varga. This guitar group was one of the most popular in 60's Japan. 8. Diamond Head, the Ventures 9. Keep Searching, Del Shanon 10. Rock 'n' Roll Music, the Beatles 11. Slow Down, the Beatles 12. Whisper Whisper? Reny Ray? 13. The House Of The Rising Sun, the Animals 14. Have I the Right, Honeycomb 15. Love Potion No 9, the Searchers
I also found a few pictures in my photo album. Let me send it in case you might be interested. At Europa in Marine Parade (image above), me and my wife half compelled to stand up on the stage. I sang "Japanese Girl" by Sam Hui. Is he Moses? The Thunderbirdsat Carriage Bar, York Hotel, Orchard Road, Singapore. With Derrick Fitzgerald on lead, this group played for nearly 20 years there.
Images and story are copyrighted and belong to Mr Hiroshi Deguchi.
YouTube Videos from Robert Varga and minipanda9.
'My Lonely Heart' by The Thunderbirds. Video by: minipanda9. Thank you.
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