Alan Tam Latest Mandarin Album ‘Zui Ai Xiao De Ren’ (Be A Joyous Man)

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Author: teropong | August 20, 2007 - 9:54 am

alan tam be a joyous man zui ai xiao de ren Ever-youthful Alan Tam returns with a Mandarin album, Be a Joyous Man.

AFTER a decade-long wait, Alan Tam is rewarding his fans with a fresh new sound in his latest album. Be a Joyous Man has a rich zhong guo feng (ethnic Chinese flavour.

Other artistes have also attempted such albums, but Tam said theirs are hip hop and R&B while his is a pop album.

“I hope you all like the songs. I’d like for the album to reach a wide audience, and for zhong guo feng to appeal to musicians as far as Europe. I’m looking forward to a musical crossover, maybe even with a Malaysian band.“I remember that there were several versions of Ngoi Ching Ham Jing (Love Trap), even Malaysian and Thai ones,” said the singer who then launched into an impromptu rendition of the Thai version of Love Trap (one of his top Cantopop hits in 1985), to the delight of his enraptured audience in Kuala Lumpur last week.

Fondly dubbed Tam Hao Jeong (Principal Tam) by the Hong Kong entertainment media and music fans, the Cantopop legend mused, “When I step into the recording studio, I’m a student, you (listeners) make the demands and in the process I learn something new. To me, that means progress, as I am always learning.”

Now, why did he wait 10 years before coming out with this album?

“Well, I had wished, for a long time, to record a Mandarin album. But, I needed the right inspiration. I had earlier recorded a Mandarin song, Pei Zhe Yang Pi De Lang (Wolf in Disguise), and included it in a Cantonese album.“Dao Lang, whom I collaborated with on that song, came up with the idea of combining a band sound with an ethnic Chinese flavour to make this album.”

Be a Joyous Man brought together prominent musicians and producers from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, like Zhang Yu, Shi Yi Lang, Yuan Wei Ren, Jin Tian, Xiao Ke and Chen Shao Qi.

Keen to introduce the lilting sounds of Chinese classical music to a global audience, Tam enthused, “Be a Joyous Man might be a pop album, but with its rich ethnic Chinese flavour, you can expect to hear lots of classical Chinese musical instruments.

“There’s the suona (oboe), plucked stringed instruments like the pipa (lute with a pear-shaped body) and guzheng (zither), and woodwind instruments like the di (side-blown flute), xiao (end-blown flute), and zhudi (bamboo flute), among others.”

Tam himself wrote both the music and lyrics for the fourth track, Ye Wan De Cai Hong (Evening Rainbow), a dreamy, romantic number which hints at the wonders of first love.

On the recording, Tam said, “In three days, I recorded seven songs. That was in Taiwan. The remaining three songs I recorded in mainland China.”

Laughing, he continued, “But that’s all right. I recall that for Fan Dao Sing (Naughty Star, his first solo album in 1979), I recorded eight songs in a day. But that was in Cantonese.”

Known as an eternal 25-year-old, he was asked why the concern about revealing his age.

His cheeky reply was, “Oh! I don’t mind revealing my age; I am 25 years, plus several hundred months old.”Eliciting peals of laughter from his audience, he continued, “Wynners has just celebrated its 33rd anniversary, so with some simple math, I’m sure you guys can work it out.”

Wynners 33 Live in Concert 2007 was released early this year after the evergreen band took to the stage at the Hong Kong Coliseum for 13 nights.

The band did never formally disbanded. Its members (Alan Tam, Kenny Bee, Bennett Pang, Danny Yip and Anthony Chan) reunite every five years on stage to sold-out concerts.

Wynners first started singing exclusively in English, then Cantonese, when Cantopop was all the rage. Now it sings in Mandarin as well.

# Zui Ai Xiao De Ren (Be a Joyous Man), distributed by Universal Music Malaysia, is available in record stores.

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