Cardiorespiratory failure was the cause of 72-year-old singer Kuo Chin-fa’s (郭金發) death, who collapsed on stage while singing his signature song on Saturday, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said.
No external injuries were found, and prosecutors as well as the medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Kuo said there was no need to dissect the body for further examination, the office said yesterday.
Kuo’s remains have been returned to his family, the office said.
Kuo, dubbed the “singing king of Formosa,” was singing his signature hit Hot Rice Dumpling (燒肉粽) at an event honoring senior citizens sponsored by the Fengshan District (鳳山) Office in Kaohsiung on Saturday when he collapsed on stage.
He was rushed to hospital, but doctors failed to resuscitate him.
He released his first album at 17 and released more than 100 albums.
His most memorable song, Hot Rice Dumpling, sung in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), was originally called Selling Rice Dumplings and gained popularity after Kuo recorded the song in 1959.
The song was banned under strict censorship laws that were enacted after martial law was declared in 1949, because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government felt that the lyrics, which alluded to people falling on hard times, were too negative.
However, the song’s popularity never faded, and was the theme song for Taiwan’s baseball team at the Asian Games in Doha in 2006.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members, including Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德), yesterday mourned the veteran singer’s passing.
DPP Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said he would ask the Ministry of Culture to look into establishing a memorial hall dedicated to Taiwanese songs that might be named after Kuo.
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