THE GOLDEN VOICE OF WONG SHIAU CHUEN

    Who would be the sweet-voiced equivalent to Ms. Chuen? Connie Francis, maybe? Helen Shapiro perhaps? Actually, Wong has her own adorable timbre.

    I found a bunch of Chuen’s records in Chinatown years ago. As I often do, I bought the albums for the cover, for the gamble, and because they were unusual. She had a sweet face, so very likely, a sweet voice. Also, to quote the Knight who says Ni, they were “not too expensive.” The idea of supporting record stores, thrift shops and gift emporiums seemed like a good idea, too. Who wants to just stay home in a windmill downloading stolen music like some gaseous cloud of coagulated dirt?

    Real fans of music don't point to 10 4TB drives full of shit they'll never hear or appreciate, just brag about OWNING. They have inquiring minds. They want to experience new styles of music. They don't just go around the Net crying, "Anybody got every James Barclay Harvest, I'm too cheap to buy any" or "Gosh, I need another 50 Neil Young bootlegs to go with the 50 I still haven't bothered to hear." At least here, on this blog, we have real music fans who will download and concentrate on a sample song, and then make a decision on whether it's worth buying. None of that "if you like it buy it" shit.

    When I BOUGHT a bunch of Chuen albums I didn't know anything about her. I still don’t know much. I know she’s also known as Huang Xiao Jun, and her records seem to be mainly pressed in Malaysia, probably late 60’s and early 70’s. She released over a dozen of them, each with the same “Golden Voice” title and just a different number. Your download is from Volume 12. 

    Did you know that when the “People’s Republic of China” was created in 1949, Mao and his pals considered pop music no better than pornography? It was effectively outlawed. No “papa ooo mow mow” for Mao! And nothing from Asian artists no matter how sweetly they sang. “Minyue” national patriotic music was what the people were supposed to hear.

    “Mandopop” and “Cantopop” (representing the popular Mandarin and Cantonese languages) was largely sold out of Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. All my Wong Shiau Chuen records seem to have been made in Malaysia. Asian language pop music in the 60’s and most of the 70’s was not made in China, where “The China Record Corporation” dominated the vinyl market and dictated who would get to be on the label.

    Deng Xiaoping allowed for a change in the backward policy of China in 1978, and imports from Hong Kong were allowed into the country. I’m not sure at what stage of Chuen’s career this may have been, or how much longer she continued singing. Her backing group was The Stylers, who recorded dozens and dozens of albums, both their own instrumentals, and in support of singers including Rita Chao, Kok Peng Keen, Sakura Teng, Lena Lim and Jenny Tseng. John Teo and Randy Lee were the leaders in the quintet, with other members being replaced now and then.

    Below, a very evocative minor key ballad. I have no idea what the title is, as the label and the back cover don’t even use Roman characters or phonetics. It’s all symbols. I simply call it…”Track Two.” 

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