While the people of the people's Republic of China were enduring the bloody convulsions of a Cultural Revolution that banned all music that did not answer the stringent requirements of the State [traditional Chinese music as well as western classical and pop were anathema],the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia were being exposed, thanks to American GIs as well as Radio Free Asia, to the most up to date music that the West could provide.
The result in the Chinese Straits Settlements [Penang, Malacca,Singapura], as well as places like Taiwan and Hong Kong, was that someone who had grown up hearing not only traditional Chinese music, such as Peking opera, but also Chinese pop of the Shanghai style, with its swing inflections and Latin rhythms, was now also exposed to Beatles and Sly and the Family Stone, as well as American country and western.
Due to booming economy of the period all those American dollars rolling like thunder through the region not only could musicians afford expensive instruments like electric guitars and organs, but young listeners could buy record players and record; what they heard on juke-boxes at their local coffee shops they could now listen to at private dance parties at home.
The result is that while the mother country was controlling the airwaves and sending its musicians to work in rice paddies or breaking rocks, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Taiwan [and to a lesser degree Bangkok] became the seed beds of Chinese pop music.
Arguably the heart of this auditory phenomenon was Singapore.
Whit its mix of Peranakan [or“straits Chinese”], Malay, Tamil, and Western heritage, the sound that came out of Singapore during this period is like no other.
The music that got Singaporeans dancing came to be known as “A-Go-Go”and “Off-Beat Cha-Cha”.
album title:Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968-1974
Released:July 20, 2010
Label:Sublime Frequencies
These songs tell of war, love and what war does to love. All of them were recorded in makeshift studios and even US army facilities while the Vietnam War raged – and were issued by a handful of Saigon record companies on vinyl 45s and reel or cassette tapes.