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 Movie Theme Songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie Theme Songs. Show all posts
One was a singer, the other an actor. Both have left us on First April, 2025.
Johnny Tillotson was famous for his good looks and pop hits that are being sung even today. These included, Poetry In Motion, Dreamy Eyes, Earth Angel, Judy, Judy, Judy and others. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin', was another pop hit, that came up tops in 1962. He composed at least 12 songs since he started his career.
He began in 1958 with the song, Dreamy Eyes but came into prominence with Poetry In Motion. Although there were other holders to this song, his version was the most successful. 2 Grammy Awards, 112 artistes recorded, A-Hurtin' and 10s of millions of records sold.
He was a big scene in Singapore 60s with a huge following and his hits being sung at T-Dances, cabarets and nightclubs by local pop singers. The ladies love him with his own dreamy eyes and handsome features. In the early 80s, he was on a singing tour that included Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
He died at 86 years. "And it keeps right on a-hurtin' since you're gone..."
Val Kilmer passed away at 65 on the same date and was in the forefront on the silver screen when he took the Bruce Wayne/Batman role in 1995 with Batman Forever. It became a financial success.His movies included, Top Gun, Tombstone, The Doors, Iceman and others. His last movie was in 2022, Top Gun: Maverick.
Henry IV [1], Hamlet, As You Like It, are plays written by WilliamShakespeareand Kilmer appeared in these productions on Broadway around the 80's and 90's. A Shakespearean actor too! That meant a lot!
These two stars are personal favourites of mine and Tillotson, together with Presley, Humperdinck, Jones and Darin were the most influential pop singers that period. Kilmer, a personal opinion, with his rugged and tough guy looks had the suave and personality to be Batman and Hamlet; two entirely different scripts and roles to decipher and act out!
Robert Gay writes with soul when he uses 50s songs and movies as milestones for his teenage journey. Detailed and heartfelt... Thanks Robert for taking time off to pen this very touching story of yours.
Becoming a Teenager:
It was no coincidence that the music of the fifties and sixties targeted the teenage market! This was the period when the post war babies became teenagers! The social culture was teenage based and created a huge unprecedented market! There were dozens of songs centered on age sixteen!
Sixteen Candles, the Platters and the Crests,
Only Sixteen, Craig Douglas,
Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Neil Sedaka,
You’re Sixteen, Johnny Burnette,
Sweet Little Sixteen, Chuck Berry etc.
One of my favourite songs by Lonnie Donegan starts, “Sweet sixteen goes to church just to see the boys... Putting on the Style!"Teenagers were falling in and out of love! Moodiness, loneliness, violence, recklessness were all part of the makeup of a teenager! The film Rebel Without a Cause said it all! James Dean became a superstar and, “Chicken“ became a dangerous game on the roads!
Cliff Richard, Pat Boon, Elvis, Ricky Nelson and many others were conferred the title! Several of the new Artistes were teenagers! Paul Anka sang Diana which was one of the biggest hits ever! Ricky Nelson sang, Poor Little Fool and My Rifle, Pony and Me with Dean Martin in, “Rio Bravo." We identified with them and learnt to sing these songs with guitar accompaniment!
I was thirteen in 1957!
Author, Traveller: Robert Gay in the Galapagos.
A Teenage Crush:
I was still catching spiders, fighting fish and flying kites and fishing! Girls never featured in my activities! I was mystified by a couple of our group who raved about this girl and that girl! Then one day the inevitable happened, I was returning from fishing in the sea off Siglap when a girl on a bicycle stopped by me, smiled at me and said “How many fish did you catch Robert?”. I was kind of speechless and just held up the string of fish that I was bringing home. She smiled again and said, “That’s a good catch “ and cycled off!
I stood there just stunned ! It didn’t help that she was just prettiest girl I had ever seen and I’d never seen her before! I thought she might have been one of my sisters’ friends! But they didn’t know her. However, a couple of the guys knew instantly who she was and even where she lived! Next day, I persuaded my new classmate Lesley from ACS to come with me to see where she lived. Somewhere in Dunbar walk!
What a Borgward 60s looks like. Usually chauffeur
driven and owned by the rich in Singapore 50s/60s.
We were just outside her house when a chauffeur driven Borgward stopped at her gate! And out she came. She saw us and came to us asking what we were doing! I had cunningly dropped a few coins on the grass verge and we were pretending to look for them. “Let me help you” she said and proceeded to look around with us! We collected my coins then she kindly invited us in for a drink (orange juice)! She got us our drinks and had one for herself.
We chatted for a while and then she said, “ Excuse me I have to do my homework, just wait for me.”
She got out her homework and we just sat and listened to Guy Mitchell, “Singing the Blues” on the LP she had put on for us!
I noticed after a while that she looked perturbed about her homework so I walked over to see what she was trying to do, She had CV Durell's, “General Mathematics Vol. 4” in front of her. I had only just finished Vol. 4 at Presbyterian Boys' School. However, I looked at the problem she was trying to solve and surprisingly saw how to do it immediately! So I showed her how it was done and I got another of those beautiful smiles. Homework was done in no time and we got to chat and got to know each other better.
Singapore students use this text book
for Mathematics practice in the 1950's.
Teenage Socials:
This became a kind of usual pattern and a few of us used to gather regularly at her place. We brought our guitars and sang the hits by Pat Boon, Elvis, Harry Belafonte, Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino and others.
She taught us how to dance; the cha cha, jive and the waltz! We also went out as a group to the places like the Botanical Gardens for a picnic where she packed a lunch. The highlight of our get-togethers was a trip to Johore Bahru one day where again she packed a lunch and drinks for us! Our main group consisted of Philip and Dennis (our Everly Brothers Champions), myself and Leslie. All this was good innocent fun and it was happy days for me.
Surprisingly she usually went to school by bus! She would walk all the way from Dunbar walk, through Frankel Avenue to the bus stop on Geylang Road where she took a bus to Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, passing my house on the way! I used to wait to wave to her and have a few words.
I remember those mornings where I would have a Billy Vaughan LP on while waiting. “A Summer Place” and “Sail along Silvery Moon” were my favourite songs on this LP. The twin saxophones blended so beautifully! However. As all good things this would not last forever.! We were always mindful that she was a little older than us. She was fifteen and we were about thirteen.
'Singing The Blues' Guy Mitchell.
YouTube Video from: The Ed Sullivan Show.
[Song is usually sung on stage by Blogger Andy.]
“I’m so young and your so old”, Paul Anka's, Diana was about two years older than Paul too. We had over a year of this wonderful companionship but we always new she had older male friends who had more serious intentions.
Teenage Blush:
One day we visited as usual but she had gone. We came again the next day and were met by her older cousin waving a large screwdriver.
“Don’t come here again!” he said, in a most unfriendly manner.
We left quite shocked and we never saw her again till many years later!
“One day she left without a word she took away the sun...” Lemon Tree, Peter Paul and Mary.
So this is how I got initiated into the teenage world! All the songs we sang were becoming true!
J-Pop or Japanese popular music reminds me of two songs significantly Japanese, but neither is J-Pop. One of these songs became popular because of Marlon Brando's encounter with Miyoshi Umeki and Hollywood's exotica about everything eastern.
'Sayonara' the movie (1957), from the book by James Mitchener and 'Sayonara' the song by famous lyricist, Irving Berlin, encompassed everything that was stereo-typical about the Japanese in the eyes of the Americans.
"Sayonara, Japanese goodbye
Whisper sayonara, but you mustn't cry
No more we stop to see pretty cherry blossom
No more we 'neath the trees, looking at the sky..."
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But the public absorbed the song like tears to tissue paper and it became a hit in Singapore in the late 50s and lingering beyond the 60s. And Brando's line, "Well, that's the cutest thing I ever saw honey..."after listening to the song, confirmed America's ideas about Eastern people and culture. Definitely the mysterious East.
The original version by Miiko Ta'aka, is from the soundtrack of the film, while the one played on radio was by Miyoshi Umeki. Her 45 rpm vinyl, Sayonara - Japanese Farewell Song - has, Be Sweet Tonight on its flipside (Mercury 71216). Both versions are great to listen to.
.
It is still a popular song and there were numerous covers done in Asia. Singapore pop band, The Quests, did an instrumental version in the 60s and in the 70s. Listen to the solo interlude by Jimmy Chan. He's playing from the heart.
Tracy Huang our beautiful, sophisticated recording artiste did a cover too. These two are the popular versions. The book by Mitchener? A good read indeed.
Sayonara 黃露儀 sung by: Tracy Huang.
YouTube Video by: wang0928051789
The book!
A stock phrase, "When
East meets West"
Miyoshi Umeki sings SAYONARA -
YouTube video by: dfactoryusa.
The English language performance of the Irving Berlin song, "Sayonara" was from the December 1957 movie of the same name, She performed a different version in the movie. Eddie Fisher released a version prior to the movie coming out which stole some of her thunder. She also performed a different song called Sayonara (The Japanese Farewell Song) in 1956.
July reminds me of the song,The Heat Is On, and of the weather that's about to slam bang Singapore into a sultry mode. So get ready guys, it's another hot, hot, hot month, a warning from the forecast on the website.
The song also reminds me of Eddie Murphy in the forefront, slam banging his way into the hearts of the crooked in one of the US cities. He's the famous African American, Beverly Hills Cop. Hollywood?
The late music genius Glenn Frey, one my favourite singers, leader of The Eagles, recorded it in 1984 and it became a hit at #2. But the melody and lyrics etched in my mind for years and when the weather turned red in Singapore, the fan in my mind started to whirl non-stop, grinding the vinyl [image below] that I used to own.
*"The heat is on, on the street, Inside your head, on every beat, And the beat's so loud, deep inside, The pressure's high, just to stay alive, 'Cause the heat is on..."
For me, this song's always a hit and in heat!
Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On 'Beverly Hills Cop' Soundtrack
YouTubeVideo: GlennFreyVEVO.Watch it!
Nearly 14 Million viewers can't be wrong.
Apparently, the word 'heat' is very meaningful in the English language, let alone in American English. Slang-wise it could mean, the police, a gun or a host of other synonyms related to being in trouble with the cops. Heat could also bring to mind relationships. The original meaning brings us home again. Yes, it's equatorial Singapore.
But don't call the cops!
Get an electric fan or turn on the air-conditioner!
[In Singapore and Asia the word heat now means any food item that's chilli hot. There's a programme on CNA (Channel News Asia) called, 'In Search of Heat', where the topic discusses different types of Asian food that uses lots of chilli and spices for its dishes.]
I have a collection of vinyl records that are actually bootleg [not original] ones and bought them when Sungei Road was around. Very cheap too, about one dollar each. I accidentally dug out two 7 inch vinyl records, the first is a single (image 1, 2: black/white) and the other an Extended Play (image 3, 4: yellow). The single is a scratched and used single vinyl with a torn sleeve, while the other is a shiny looking bootleg E.P. And I've never played them before. While the single has the hits, For A Few Dollars More and Coffin For A Gunfighter, the E.P. has the same two numbers plus Titoli and La Resa Dei Conti on the front cover. These titles were translated as, The Killer and Fistful of Dollars.
The Single Both Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef came alive with Ernio Morricone's iconic music when I put the single on the turntable and Coffin For A Gunfighter came loud and clear on the speakers. With the second track, the whistling from For A Few Dollars More took me back to my youth as the sound filled the room with what many knowledgeable fans during yesteryear would term as spaghetti western instrumentals.
For the uninitiated, these instrumentals were so popular that even our Singapore record producers in the mid 60's went full gear to employ part-time session musicians to record the songs so they can make a few dollars more.
The particular single I have, boasts Charlie and His Orchestra printed on the cover. I remember very clearly there was also a Charlie and His Go-Go Boys when a-go-go music was in vogue and Charlie and The White Cloud Orchestra when the Chinese song White Cloud was popular. In fact Charlie and his many orchestras became so popular that his records flooded the local market in the 1960's and 1970's as many instrumental hits were produced. But was the orchestra actually music from the keyboard with its variety of gadgetry sounds? You know, push a button, trumpet sound, push another guitar sound, and so on. Was it a one-man show?
This particular single (i.e. with two songs) is a Star Swan Brand and sold over the counter as a legitimate cover version. As I explained earlier, mine is a near new record.
The E.P. The Extended Play (King Records) looks brand new too and seemed untouched, and unblemished on surface; it was invitation enough to be played. The cardboard sleeve cover, however, is old with some dirt markings. Even a clean-up job did no good. Strange. Then came the revelation. When I played the first track, I was shocked to find more than 5 repeat grooves. Thrashed to bits, it was fit for the trash can. I had to abandon the track but continued with the second one. Perfect. How much money these pirates made is hard to tell but the amount of illegal vinyls generated those years were tremendous, so much so that they were in the market for sale even before the genuine pieces were out.
The reason why people were buying these records instead of the original ones was because they could get four songs on one vinyl piece. It was convenient and cheap. Furthermore, these movies and music made up the Dollars Trilogy that were a draw. (The movies collected more than $55 million from the big screen. It is still big money today, what more in the 60's). Starting with A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For A Few Dollars More (1965), the songs from spaghetti westerns came full circle with, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966).To cater to the large Chinese listeners, the pirated version printed the language to attract them for easy reference and sale. And, as usually the case, by the time genuine Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra (RCA) came on the dusty streets with holstered guns, the big duel was over. Mr. Bootleg won! The reward money was worth it.
And cheap recordings done with one person on an electronic keyboard!
*bootleg = a pirated copy, usually with sloppy sleeves, typo-errors, etc. Images: A Private Collection. Videos: You Tube from Ukulele Orchestra.
I was crazily consuming comic books as a child, reading Batman, Superman, Plastic Man, Captain Marvel and my favourite lady superhero, Wonder Woman. So engrossed in these colourful, attractive, addictive magazines that I forgot breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner. Homework was left aside as a last minute jeopardy time and done in convenience within a few minutes. And my own wonder woman, - wonderful mum - shakes her head in despair.
The addiction went on to living room craze in the 70s and 80s, watching her again, enacted by the beautiful and magnificent Queen Lynda Carter. These episodes lasted for a while, and then in 2016, Gal Gadot came along to take over the role. She is an enigmatic choice for the part, strong, remarkable and definitely eye-candy for her fans. A wonder lady from Israel. Whew...
On 21st October, 2021, Wonder Woman celebrates her 80th.
"When I was young, I used to listen to music of all genres, be it pop, country or jazz. As for movies, I like the action, drama, comedy and musical ones. I was obsessed into writing to my favourite pop or movie stars for their autographed pictures. Not all of them would rely but I did receive from Brenda Lee, Anne Murray, George Straits, Helen Shapiro and a few others.
As for film stars, I had some lovely photos of Sandra Dee, Susan Pleshette, Connie Steven’s and Elizabeth Taylor. However, I was really surprised to receive a quite long letter from Anthony Perkins. Remember him, I guess the Pioneer or Silver generation did for his excellent role in the hit “Psycho”, in which he starred with Janet Leigh. He played his part cleverly and the movie was a box office hit. I hereby leave you with the letter that I had from him."
Thanks Stephen for allowing us to read Mr. Perkins' letter to you. It is certainly very rare that famous movie stars would want to reply personally to their fans. This missive is a treat indeed. Andy.
A personal letter from Anthony Perkins to Stephen Han:
