Golden oldies never go out of fashion.
A CD featuring digitalized remastered original recordings of popular songs from the 1930s released by the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs has proven to be a hit since its release on Saturday.
The CD was released in homage to late Taiwanese lyricist Lee Lin-chiu (李臨秋) on the 100th anniversary of his birth, which falls on Wednesday.
The 23 tracks of digitalized 1930s recordings — including nine written by Lee — come with a book recounting the history of the Taiwanese music industry in the 1930s and the stories behind the songs.
Born in 1909 in Taipei while Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule, Lee, along with many other Taiwanese musicians, such as composer Teng Yu-hsien (鄧雨賢) and lyricists Chen Chun-yu (陳君玉) and Chen Ta-ju (陳達儒), was worried that Taiwanese culture and the originality of Taiwanese music could disappear as most people were listening to popular Japanese music at the time. They therefore decided to make “Taiwan’s own popular music.”
Their attempt was successful — many people today consider the 1930s as the first golden age of Taiwanese popular music. Unfortunately, only about 200 of the more than 500 songs produced during that time survive today.
“It was a challenging task,” Taipei City Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) said about the project to find the original recordings and to digitalize the music for release on CD.
“Many record collectors did not want to loan us the more than half-a-century old records that still have very good sound quality,” Lee Yong-ping said. “It was also quite a task to get the copyright issues straightened out, since most of the musicians have passed away.”
On the technical side, it was also the first attempt to digitalize music from decades-old records in Taiwan, she said.
But the efforts were not in vain — the CD proved to be a hit only a day after its release.
“A total of 2,000 copies were released yesterday [Saturday] and we’ve sold more than 800 of them so far,” Lin Li-wen (林麗雯), a staff member at the 228 Memorial Museum said yesterday.
“People who bought the CD are of different age groups — a lot of young people bought it for their elderly relatives or said they wanted to get the feeling of olden times,” Lin said.
The 228 Memorial Museum in Taipei is the only place where the CD is available at the moment.
As Lin spoke to the Taipei Times in her office, phone calls inquiring about the CD continued to flood in.
A concert will be held to honor Lee Lin-chiu at the 228 Peace Park in Taipei on Saturday at 7pm.
For information about the CD, contact Yu (余) at (02)2389-7228 ext. 26.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS