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 !
Thanks to a Singapore Heritage Festival bloggers' workshop some of us acted as though we were MPs, if only for a day. But it was at the Art House - the former Parliament building - that we aired our views on 60s music.
Three sessions for Past Forward: A Heritage Blogging and Social Media Workshop, held in the main chamber on 14th July were moderated by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow (top left) who co-authored the book, Singapore: A Biography.
Panel speakers for Session 2, Not Just Nostalgia: Music of the 1960s, were yours truly and Georgiana Glass (top right), blogger at modcentric.blogspot.com Others who were either on panel workshops or guests included Lam Chun See, (author, blogger), Victor Koo, James Seah (bloggers) , Peter Chan (archivist, photographer), Yusnor Ef (cultural medallionist, author, lyricist ) and Audie Ng (Silver Strings band leader, bassist).
The main thrust of the panel discussion was to encourage all Singaporeans to post their memories on a blog or share online about heritage. The speakers related stories and provided tips from their online blogging and experiences to "demystify heritage blogging" and "help people to feel that they don't have to be experts in order to blog."
In this session, I raised a question as to why local Singapore 60s songs like Shanty, My Lonely Heart and other popular ones have not been orchestrated and performed by SSO while second panel speaker Glass advised her youthful audience that they do not, "need to live in the 60s to blog about music from that period."
Ivan Chew (Singapore Memory Project), Dan Koh, Rosenah Omar, Adrianna Tan, Char Lee and Zakaria Zainal were the other session panellists during the workshop. A wonderful gathering it was with reasonable audience participation. But the rain outside...
The above article is not an official report on the Workshop but a personal observation.
Images: Peter Chan and James Seah Collection, Copyrights Reserved.
I remember when I was in my early twenties being chauffeur driven in the night in an Opel Record (image 3) to *West Point Gardens. A good friend had suggested that we experienced the place and I agreed.
To the uninitiated West Point was a distance away from the Orchard Road belt of nightclubs, dance floors, lounges, pubs and bars. From its name description, it was also on the west end of Singapore compared to another music hot spot, the more populated east coast.
So it was the first time in my life that I went there and as we were approaching the area under cover of trees, shrubs and near darkness, I could hear faintly the music and noticed the glow of fluorescent lighting.
A typical dance floor scene in the 50's
when mambos, cha-chas were the craze.
Perez Prado and Orchestra Mambo No: 5.
YouTube video from: 1ilnicche
When I came out of the car I was pleasantly surprised to see that West Point Gardens was a fairyland in the woods. And as Peter Chan explained: "One thing I cannot forget was the strings of multicoloured light bulbs hung across the garden." Don't forget it was the beginning of the 60s and as a young 'un-everything seemed bright and beautiful to me.
West Point Gardens had been in existence since the early 50s and was patronised by the well-heeled Caucasians and locals to dine and dance. The main attraction was a circular open-air area that had a bandstand, a café with chairs and tables at its peripheral, guarding the precious dance floor jealously, allowing only the selected to tread. During high-tide evenings I was told, betwixt the music, one could hear the lapping waves from the sea besides.
Doli Topaz and his Hawaiian Rhythm Kings (image 2) were the resident bands at the Gardens since the 50s and the 1955 photographs above show Anthony Danker, Doli Topaz, G. Mani, Jimmy Tupaz and William Frois.
Patti Page: Changing Partners.
YouTube Video by: SVansay.
The kind of music played those years.
The other line-up (image 1) included Charles Danker and Horace Olivero. Their repertoire of popular hits from the 30s onwards took them to royalty status indeed! Samba, rhumba, mambo and grass-skirt, palm-tree swaying music filled the Pasir Panjang air. Sliding guitar, ukulele maracas combinations were the order of the day.
After the 50s and during the Singapore garage band (locally known as kampong bands) explosion, these swing bands were taken over by the more youthful guitar gangs, as they ambled in rapaciously with their portables and colourful Hofner guitars, plugging them into their black box amplification. And as the solid bass guitar replaced the booming double-bass a new era was born; anyone could jive, twist, shake and rattle on the floor as West Point Gardens changed its tune.
According to Peter Chan, whom I consulted to authenticate yesteryear locations in Singapore: "West Point is a condominium today. As one travels along old Pasir Panjang Road near the junction with Clementi Road, there is an old house which was Kwa Geok Choo's family house during pre-WWII. One door away was a police station (maybe a carpark now), then a condominium. That place was West Point Gardens.
I passed by that place very often in my father's car in the 1960s as we took the West Coast Road over a road bridge to Boon Lay before turning into Old Jurong Road. West Point had an old Peranakan type bungalow raised on legs.
There was a large garden and the beach was in front - today's longkang (exceptionally large monsoon drain) - between West Coast Highway and those old houses."
We gather at a magic spot where fresh air is the order of the day and when music even fills the crevices of the monuments that abound. About 9 senior bloggers get together for a session as teh-tarek flows. Ukelele and harmonica sounds charm the surrounds beneath the tree-lined meadows of Siglap Hill.
"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour..."
"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils..."
"You just call out my name, And you know wherever I am, I'll come running, To see you again, Winter, spring, summer or fall, All you have to do is call, And I'll be there..."
Images
Wee Kiat and Dick (image 1) on the harmonica and ukelele play, Oh Suzanna.
(Image: Peter Chan at the Club Elite, 5th floor Supreme House Building, which is now Parkmall. Club Elite was a Japanese lounge which was part of Okoh Restaurant, owned by a Mr. Sato from Japan. Mr. Sato also ran the Orchid Inn Hotel at Dunearn Road in the 1970s.)
Dear Andy,
Raymond G. Rees-Oliviere (Lance Raymond as featured in previous postings), a friend of mine was with the British Army. He got involved with the music scene in Singapore and Malaya in the late 1950s. He knew some local musicians like the Solianos; they played cha-cha-cha and latin music.
Ray has written an article with many photographs. Golden Venus, where Ray used to play, was at the former Orchard Hotel and it still goes by the same name, situated at the corner of Orchard Road and Orange Grove Road.
When I took up music at Foorman's Music School, many of the teachers were Pinoys (Phillipinos) since there were many of these musicians from the 30s through the 60s. By associating with the Pinoy musicians I was introduced to contemporary music.
Thanks to my late father who gave me a start in music at an early age, I was able to find a safety net after National Service. I soon became a lounge pianist, not with a disco band this time because the government closed down many discos from 1974 onwards.
With the closure there were few opportunities for pop bands. The government's actions were in response to the hippie sub-culture and growing prevalence of drug addiction.
By the way, my own repertoire then was influenced by the Dragons, the Solianos and big band sounds like Glen Miller. When it comes to Chinese pop, it was more like the 40s and 50s because I used to spin records from Poon Sow Keng (Pan Xiu Qiong), Love Without End type of music and Bobby Darin, etc.
Cheers!
Peter.
PS: Ray made a reference to a jazz pub down at Boat Quay. It was after reading an article last month that I found where the place was. It's just after North Bridge Road going towards South Bridge Road after the bridge at the first building on the left.
7th in the series under 'UK/US Bands in Singapore'. Click under 'Labels' below to read series.
"Photo 3: My early beginnings in the world of Performing Arts. I am at the keyboard, my cousin on the violin and my other cousin the conductor. I think we played the **Blue Danube Waltz (image/1964).
It is not true that Flower Drum Song was the only item for the evening. The students put up many items to demonstrate their musical abilities across different musical instruments. This must have made their parents very proud."
Peter Chan who wrote the 3 articles in this series, became a part-time pop musician playing the Orchard Road circuit and SEAsia in the 70s. This article is the last.
**(Blogger's Note: Classical music has influenced pop music through the years. Click on, 'Classical Music Influence' under 'Labels' below to read articles on Mantovani and G.I. Blues.)
"Photo 2: Alfred Choo, the future international lounge pianist is at the keyboard. **Didn’t know the girls were already in hot pants back in the early 1960s. Back then we boys were curious whether the girls wore anything below that short chinese blouse.
The stage was the former Cultural Centre Center at Fort Canning, now demolished and replaced by the one presently at the rear of the National Museum (circa 1962).
Funny thing though, my late grandmother was roped in to cut and sew the costumes. Where’s the connection? She came from Toi Shan County, China to marry my grandfather in the 1910s.
Lucky for us, she brought with her to Singapore plenty of chinese culture; she knew everything about the clothes and style of yesteryears, intricate Chinese buttons, pretty samfoo and unique pig-tails. She also knew the feminine art of using a hand fan. If you look at the photos, you find the boys and girls dressed up in various Chinese outfits.
Alfred Choo, the senior student of Foorman’s was the Music Director. Choo later became a top-notch hotel pianist in Hong Kong’s Peninsular Hotel and at the Marco Polo Hotel in Singapore."
Original article/image: Peter Chan.
Note from Blogger: They were wearing hot pants since the 50s, Peter!
**Short Shorts (1958) by The Royal Teens [Spoken:] Ooh man, dig that crazy chick/Who wears short shorts/We wear short shorts/They're such short shorts/We like short shorts/Who wears short shorts/We wear short shorts. [Repeat 2x]
"Photo 1: When I look at this 1962 photograph, the first thing that strikes me are the stage props. Don’t they remind you of those seen at a Chinese wake? Or do they look more like the 1950 anti- government street demonstration with all those banners?
Remember the musicals I was discussing in the previous posting? Well this time I am not in the audience but as a performer. And in one of the biggest and most popular musicals in the 60s, Flower Drum Song. How did it happen? It was in 1962 when Foorman’s School of Music - the place I attended my piano lessons - gave a public concert at the former Fort Canning Cultural Center, Singapore.
Flower Drum Song is a musical comedy set in San Francisco's Chinatown concerning old-fashioned Chinese and modern Chinese-Americans clashing over tradition and trying to find romance. That’s all I knew except for the big names like the darling Nancy Kwan and handsome James Shigata. The concert finale was set to the music of Grant Avenue, one of many songs taken from the musical."
"I do say I don’t enjoy or know very much about stage plays or musicals until I was in one myself (Flower Drum Song). My introduction to the theaters was when a friend got me some free tickets to watch his son perform in Oliver! at the London Palladium (image).
Soon, I learnt there was a way to buy more economical tickets if you bought on the afternoons just one or two days before the actual performance.
I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and in the next few weeks, while on a business trip in London, my family sat through Jesus Christ Superstar, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Martin Guerre, and Phantom of the Opera, well before they hit Singapore shores."
Image: from e-bay.
(Original Article: was contributed by Peter Chan who was a Singapore 70s pop musician but now a successful business person.)
Thanks to a Singapore Heritage Festival bloggers' workshop some of us acted as though we were MPs, if only for a day. But it was at the Art House - the former Parliament building - that we aired our views on 60s music. 
