A Letter To All My Friends, Contributors, Readers

Why This Blog:

My profile page explains it all. 

"This blog is written to (a) relive my missing music years, (b) keep interested seniors posted about our local music scene, (c) encourage music stories from them and (d) keep our younger generation, especially my *3J's, aware of our pop music heritage. 

Although I have lived the age and participated in the music I am neither a music guru nor historian. No showing off past glories."

Today is November 22nd and this blog will be into its eighth year. My eldest grandson First Jay is nine and I remember he was two years young when I first thought about writing a blog. And it all started at Vivo City.

That was when I went on stage to offer a non-professional voice backing to the Silver Strings on 8th November 2008 and First Jay was there with my folks. Although he was still so young, I felt he was enthralled by the event, definitely by the loud guitar noise.

Friends And Readers Who Assisted With Blog:

Here is my list of friends who started me off with the blog:

1. Roger Poh
2. Victor Koo
3. Friends of Yesteryear (FOYERS) Group, Singapore
4. Larry Lai

Very kind blog readers contributed their stories to help boost its authenticity. The list includes writers, photographers and their country of residence:

1.   Allan Thompson: Norfolk England UK

2.   Barry Walker: England UK

3.   John Harper: York England UK
4.   Dino Martin Peters: USA

5.   Happy Tay: Vancouver BC Canada

6.   Matt Tan: Montreal Quebec Canada   

7.   Byrt Mallanyk: Sydney Australia

8.   Mag Jnne: Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

9.   Peter Chan: Singapore

10. CYLin: Singapore

11. Mun Chor Seng: Singapore

12. John Cher: Singapore. 
13. Michael Bangar 
14. Stephen Han
15. Horace Wee
16. Henri Gann
17. SPYeo
18. Dr Steven Farram 
19. Winston Koh
20. Richard Seah 
21. Charlie Yap  
22. Joe Woon 
And many more...

Regular Commentators from Singapore include:

1.   FL 
2.   Ronnie See 
3.   Rickie Chng
4.   Audie Ng
5.   Jerry Fernandez
6.   Merlin Lim 
7.   Dato Dr YS Lee: Penang  Malaysia.
8.   Jimmy Chng
9.   Randy Lee
10. Erwin Maisch
11. James Seah
12. Dino Martin Peters: USA
13. BC Teoh: KL Malaysia
14. Dr Steven Farram: Charles Darwin University, Darwin Australia.

Translators for Mandarin:
1. Lim Kuan Min 
2. SPYeo.

Observations on Pop Yeh Yeh and Malay cultural matters:
1. Yusnor Ef.

Media for introducing the blog:
1. Majorie Chiew: STAR newspaper Malaysia
2. Brigitte Rozario: 3age Malaysia Website
3. Christopher Toh: TODAY newspaper
4. Singapore Chinese newspapers

Media Corp Singapore for telecast documentaries about blog and local pops:
1. Channel News Asia
2. Channel 5
3. Octo Channel

There are many regular contributors, so excuse me if I have not included your name. It is a long list and more will be added as the days go by. Apologies.

Helping Tertiary Students And Lost Friends:

Glad this blog has kept its pace and, most importantly, helped students at tertiary level who need to write papers about our 1960's music heritage for their media studies. Still meeting them at a Mall for interviews.

This blog has also got long lost band members and friends together. Some of them have either migrated to far off lands or had never been in touch since their last band practice :-) Glad this blog has put some folks together again.

With other books, blogs available in the market and websites, our youth have easier access to information about Singapore's Golden Years of Music and its western influence.

Thank you all for support.

Yours Sincerely,

Andy.

*3 grandchildren.

Images: Google.

Late 50s British Pop TV: By John Harper Part 3

             John Barry 7+4 Hit and Miss YouTube Video by Sids60sSounds

This posting is the third and final episode of John Harper's late 50s pop music journey from England to Singapore and back. I don't know if he was travelling light and hand jiving with a living doll but it was surely a pleasant and memorable journey without hits and misses:

"On our return to the UK in 1959 we arrived at the end of July in Blackpool just in time for the August Bank Holiday. There had been a heat wave, reservoirs had almost dried up. It should have been ideal for our return from the warmth of Singapore, but no, the weather changed the day we got back and it was cold and rainy!

Juke Box Jury with 'The Rolling Stones' in 1964.

We were in a transit hotel and novelty of novelties, there was a television in the lounge. Saturday evenings after tea was the Juke Box Jury programme and all of us kids and some of the mums and dads would sit down to watch and listen to the latest releases being voted on by a jury of celebrities.

"It's late we gotta get on home..."

For me one the most exciting parts was the introductory music to the programme, *Hit and Miss by the John Barry 7 + 4 (video above). John Barry later went on to produce the music for the James Bond films. A few of the songs and tunes that made a mark on me from the programme were by Connie Francis mentioned earlier, Ricky Nelson singing It's Late and then towards the end of 1959 after we had moved to Yorkshire came Johnny and The Hurricanes with Red River Rock.

"Please come back to the Red River Valley..."

This made an impression on me for several reasons, my mother was from Manitoba in Canada and had lived on a tributary of the Red River (above image). Then, of course, there were the saxophones and guitars. So by the end of 1959, I was well and truly hooked on twangy guitars and growling saxophones.

Biggest audience of 20 million in January 1960 featured Cliff Richard and Shadows.

Sunday night television was rounded out by the popular Sunday Night at The London Palladium had everybody enthralled. Opening with the Tiller Girls dancing then there was always some comedy, the Beat The Clock game show and then rounded off with a musical performance.

Cliff Richard with Singapore Orchids.

Popular at this time was an up and coming star by the name of Cliff Richard singing Living Doll, Willie And The Hand Jive and Travelling Light. I was particularly taken with the guitar solos. It was that twangy guitar thing again, I was hooked and was soon to become a fan of the Shadows, Cliff's backing group.

Although, this is not the full extent of my musical preferences and experience I think this period from late 1955 to the end of 1959 played a large part in shaping my musical preferences and the person I am today."

*Larry Lai used the same theme song for his Spinaround - UK Top Twenty programme on Rediffusion in the late 60s.

Original article: John Harper Copyright.
Images from Google.

John Harper's Singapore 50s Music Trail: Part Two

"For this second part, I'll be looking at the influences I encountered on the journey to Singapore and during our time there between 1957 and 1959.

During 1957 to mid 1958 we would go for family meals in Changi Village to either Tong Sing's Restaurant or next door to the air conditioned Milk Bar. The Milk Bar had a juke box and my father would often get up and put some money in and choose a few records. Most embarrasing, even to this day was Max Bygraves singing about those blue and pink toothbrushes. He thought he was putting something amusing on for my brothers an me. Fortunately he realised after only a few times that we were not amused.

1950s Changi Village, Singapore

His other choices always included Harry Belafonte, "Banana Boat Song" and his all time favourite "Island In The Sun". I think "Island In The Sun" was a favourite of the whole family because it more or less summed up our pleasure of being on a beautiful island in the sun that we all loved. Two others I remember from that juke box were "Tequila" and "Yakkety Yak".

A 50's juke-box playing vinyl records

This is where saxophones are beginning to raise their voices and I start to hear them and become interested in the saxophone, never did get round to learning to play one though! However my niece Deborah is a brilliant saxophonist, she actually played the saxaphone as she came down the aisle when she got married!

My own favoured instrument is the guitar and I have played bass guitar in a beat group (mid 60s term there) and played rhythm guitar in a few folk scenarios. With electric guitars I like a nice clean but twangy sound with bags of echo but do enjoy the sound of a good acoustic guitar played in a folky style. I think the twangy sound hit me when I first heard Duane Eddy playing "Rebel Rouser", it also has some evocative saxaphone working away contrapuntaly. Listening to it today it strikes me how it has a lot of amplitude tremolo and bags of echo.

Young Connie Francis

It was at this time that I became aware of vocal harmonies though I probably could not have described how it was done, my understanding of chords was to come a couple of years later from a school music lesson and when I took up playing the guitar. Liking of folky and country styles of music probably came from hearing Slim Dusty, mentioned in part one.

*Probably the greatest exponents of vocal harmony were the Everly brothers with "Bye Bye Love", "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Bird Dog". On the female front there are some nice harmonies going on on some of Connie Francis' records. I don't know whether this is another person singing with Connie or whether it is a second part sung by Connie and dubbed, However it was done, the effect is melodic and provides a warm richness to the music. Notable hits of this time, to me, were "Stupid Cupid" and "Who's Sorry Now".

Tommy Steele - British Pops late 1950s

Elvis appeared on the scene during these years and some of the favourite songs to sing on the bus to school along with the Everly Brothers "Bye Bye Love" were "Teddy Bear" and "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck". Also in there was Tommy Steele's "Singing The Blues". I think Sam Cooke's "Only Sixteen" was released just before we left to return back to the UK but might have been after we arrived back in England.

The Everly Brothers recorded album in mid 1966 but it didn't sell well.

In the third part I'll be looking at the rest of 1957 covering August to December which is the time we arrived back in England, just before the August Bank Holiday, our time in a transit hotel in Blackpool and our moving to Yorkshire."

Original article: John Harper Copyrights Reserved.

Same Cooke

(*It was at this time of the decade when vocal duets like The Blue Diamonds from Holland, The Cyclones comprising Siva and James Choy hit the Singapore stage with their own rendition of songs in harmony. Following the popular trend there were a few ladies who were called the "Connie Francis of Singapore". Up to this day no one really knows who owns the title or if there was ever such a singing competition honouring this singer with the clear diction and powerhouse vocals. Andy Lim.)

Images: from Google.

"Tunes That Crept Into My Consciousness" Singapore 50s With John Harper: Part One

John Harper

John Harper resides in York, England, plays bass guitar and lived in Singapore in the late 50s.   I met him recently with wife Ann where he recalled the times he spent on our sunny island.  When I asked him if he could share his music memories specially for this blog he agreed. Thank you John.

Part One:

The people we are today is the sum of all the influences on our life before today. Tomorrow we will be slightly different people because we have to add in today's influence. But, the difference will not be very much, because those influences of the past have already moulded and shaped us significantly along the way. Some of the influences that play a big part in moulding you include: your mother and father, where you have lived, the people you have met and the food, music and art you have experienced during that time.


"Killed him a b'ar when he was only three"

Probably the most crucial years are the years from the age of about 10 to 20 years of age. For me, two of those crucial years were spent in Singapore between the ages of 10 and 12 years old, arriving in Singapore in April 1957 and returning to the UK in July 1959. In this short series I'll be looking at the years just prior to our move to Singapore as Part 1, our time in Singapore as Part 2 and for the third part what was happening in the UK in the first few months of our return.


"Will we have rainbows day after day"

I had probably started to notice popular music in films and on the radio only a couple of years before we went to Singapore. This was possibly initiated by my mother taking my brothers and I to see films like “Davy Crockett”, “The Dambusters”, “The man Who Knew Too Much”, and probably that most influential of films for popular music that forever changed the mould; “Rock Around The Clock”.

By this time we were also listening to Radio Luxembourg which started the evening with a fifteen minute slot of "Dan Dare - Pilot Of The Future" fighting the evil green alien “The Mekon” before starting the evenings output of popular music. We were allowed to listen to Dan Dare and then to the music until it was time for bed.

The films introduced me to a variety of interesting music from the brand new thumping beat of “Rock Around The Clock”, to the gentler Doris Day number from “The Man Who Knew Too Much” “Que Sera, Sera” or whatever will be, will be.

"Put your glad rags on and join me hon"

When the Davy Crockett film came out everybody at school was singing the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” and some even wore Davy Crockett hats with the raccoon tail hanging down. Our aunt in Canada even sent us some printed Davy Crockett T shirts. I did not want to be different to all my class mates in those days and as they did not have T shirts like them I did not want to wear them publicly and actually kicked up such a fuss that they were put away. Somehow when they resurfaced when we got to Singapore and shirts with colourful patterns were the norm after school they were unpacked and worn with minimal fuss.

"Saying who can that fool be"

To this eclectic mix was added the theme from the "Dambusters" which had not really made much of an impact on me until my friend started playing it on a recorder and taught me how to play the first few bars. Further spicing the mix were a few tunes from the radio that had crept into my consciousness, "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" played by the man with the golden trumpet a title Eddie Calvert justly deserved by following it up with another all time favourites of mine “Zambesi”. A few years later Zambesi reappeared in the superb format of a Hank Marvin arrangement for guitar by the Shadows, I think it was on about their third LP (On You Tube video below). 


"Branches of the two trees were intertwined"

Three songs popular in the UK before we left became popular in Singapore just about at the time that we arrived. They were Ann Shelton's “Lay Down Your Arms”, Eddie Fisher's “Cindy, Oh Cindy” and Johnnie Ray's “Walking In The Rain”. Because of the delay between songs being released in the UK and being released in Singapore and Australia releases wereabout six to twelve weeks behind what was popular in the UK. So, with these three songs we got to enjoy them all over again.
One song that I think was an exception to this sequence was “A Pub With no Beer” by Slim Dusty, recorded in Australia and distributed from Australia first. The flip side of it was an even folkier number called “Once When I Was Mustering”. More on this later.

"Nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear"

As you can see, my tastes are becoming wide and varied from the smooth hot brassy tones of Eddie Calvert, through the dulcet tones of Doris Day to the folksy nasal tones of Slim Dusty and I have barely started on the influences of the music I heard in Singapore.

The next article will cover 1957 and 1958.

CONNECT HERE for both:
http://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/2013/01/john-harpers-singapore-50s-music-trail.html

Original article: John Harper Copyrights Reserved.
Images: Google.
Captions: from song lyrics.

John contributes to Buzz:
https://profiles.google.com/117596378549583765811/buzz#117596378549583765811/buzz