From Records To Night Spots: Irene Yap Part II

When Irene Yap decided to turn professional, a singing contract during her school holiday in 1971 took her to Genting Highlands, Malaysia, where she performed and was accompanied on stage by The Commandos from Indonesia.
This new life lasted for 15 years and included stage appearances with Rahim Hamid (Singapore's Nat King Cole) and The Pebbles, Sonny Bala and The Moonglows and many other top pop Singapore bands.

She entertained at a string of hotels all over Singapore from about 1972 to 1980 including the Apollo at Ion Bar in Kings at and the Ambassador in the East Coast. Her nightclub stints included the El Amigo, Lido Deluxe (image 2), the Capuccino at Plaza Singapura and other popular spots.

A journalist from an English newspaper, remarked in an article that Irene "has a voice that is light, almost ethereal." With a voice so heavenly like the songbird herself, it was not a wonder that she had encore performances at the clubs that she was in. Irene remembers that in a particular nightspot "management kept asking me to come back..." She did, and remained a resident singer for almost five years. And that told a lot about her!

There were moments in her youthful career that Irene sung duet with guitarist and keyboardist Edmund Tan. They entertained audiences with hits like , Jackson, Love Me With All Your Heart, He'll Have To Go. Her nightly club acts widened her repertoire and she sang in other languages too.

Irene added, "The regulations in the nightspots were very strict. Being underaged I had to apply for a licence to perform. We were not allowed to patronise customers and had to wear decent costumes."

But it was a varied, colourful and successful life's journey for this songbird. From the first vinyl record contract offered, where the Charles Lazaroo Orchestra accompanied her in Pretty Ribbons and where she went through "hard gruelling sessions of recordings", up to the time that she retired to get married, she never regretted a moment.

Irene moved to the US for a short while, living in two major cities. She had been a housewife since except for a comeback at two nightclubs in 1995. During her very early years one newspaper headlined her as the "pint-sized veteran of show business".

Today this true veteran reminisced, "When you start singing at such a tender age, you never think about anything else. Singing becomes your life and doing something you love. No regrets except that it had taken some of my childhood."

Irene's story reveals her positive attitude towards a life and career that she chose to take. It is a music journey spanning quite some years but she has made it a successful one. Thank you Irene for sharing your past moments with me. I appreciate it very much.

Images from Irene Yap Collection: 1) Night club poster. 2) Chinese New Year songs with two other singers. The three of them did a Chinese Variety Show appearance and also recorded children's songs.

Original article: Andy Lim. All copyrights reserved.

Esplanade Sea Dragon Songs Singapore 50s Part 1

Part I:

Page references are from the coffee-table book, 'Remember The 50s: Objects and Moments of a Dynamic Era' by Tectum Publishers 2010 (image 3).

Nothing jolts the memory like snapshots of old. Using the coffee-table book as a guide, the content as milestones and the photographs as lightning conductors I recreated my own teenage journey as I flipped through the pages of time and reminisced the moments, momentos and music of the 50s.

Images quickly conjured in my mind as I read the short paragraph about the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (page: 18). In the first week of June 1953 when I was only 13, Singapore celebrated the coronation in style. I recalled how my parents booked one of Adelphi Hotel's uppermost rooms facing North Bridge Road so we could watch the coronation floats passing by below us. This event could have been the original concept for our annual Ching-gay parade.

A trip to the old Esplanade the next evening revealed the most fascinating sight that I had ever seen in the 50s. A dozen sampans at sea were carrying a beautifully illuminated sea dragon spouting neon lights (image 1) but from afar the illusion was so life-like and breath-taking. And this was a time before the advent of high technology and laser lights.

As I turned around to face inland, the crowned 20-storey Asia Insurance Building before us stood high and mighty in the night sky. It was the pride and joy for Singaporeans then as the building was the tallest on the island. Neon signs below the crown twinkled brightly announcing, Long Live The Queen (image 2).

In the same year certain songs played constantly over the radio waves. Bill Hayley's Crazy Man Crazy, Les Paul and Mary Ford's Vaya Con Dios, Perry Como's Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes, Dean Martin's That's Amore, Kay Starr's Changing Partners and Earth Kitt's C'est Si Bon were some of the more conservative ones featured on Radio Singapore.

Do you remember the 50s in Singapore? Or perhaps your parents do? Are you aware that God Save The Queen was Singapore's National Anthem in the 50s?

Check out Part II soon for references from the book about the hula hoop, pony-tail, Tupperware, Capris, Match-Box Cars, Cadillac 59, Playboy, Drive-Ins and James Dean.

Images 1 and 2 by courtesy of Susan Brooks.
Image 3: Book cover 'Remember The 50s' Editor: Mariel Marohn (Tectum Publishers 2010). NLB Singapore. Ref: 306.09045 REM.
Original article by: Andy Lim.
(This posting is not a book review.)

First 1910 Pop Band In Singapore @ Raffles Hotel?

During a recent relaxing cruise around the region I stumbled upon another coffee-table book in the ship's library. It was a large collection of Singapore 500 Early Postcards. What attracted me to this book (Cover: image 1) were the never-before-seen pictures of very old Singapore.

I feasted my hungry eyes on scenes of opium smokers in the 1930s languishing in their own private lounges, rice-cake hawkers under shady trees selling their ware to labourers, rickshaws beside vintage cars on the streets of Orchard Road and the Victoria Memorial Hall in its orginal, colonial splendour. 500 of the best snaps!

*Private collector and author of the book, deltiologist Professor Cheah Jin Seng donated his local postcards to the Singapore Philatelic Museum in 2007. He estimated that between the late 1890 and 1940, two hundred thousand postcards were published. Another researcher Chris Mortimer estimated that half a million postcards were sent from the Straits Settlement during the postcard boom around the 1900.

Again, what has all this to do with music? As I flip through the pages of time, what interested me most was one picture, a photograph of 'the first ballroom in the East' at the Raffles Hotel (image 2) dated 1910. Imagine a big band playing in Singapore exactly 100 years ago? I have enlarged the image and highlighted the band (image 3) performing on the raised platform in front of the ballroom. The 10 musicians can be clearly seen with the grand piano, guitar, drumset , double bass and other instruments (?).

What music could the band have been playing then as the couples, possibly only caucasians, ballroomed their way across the polished wooden floor? What dance steps were popular so early in the 20th Century? Is the date correct? 1910?

Anyone familiar with this period of popular music, both Western and Eastern? A check with Wikipedia revealed songs that I have never heard of. They include, Ma Blushin' Rosie, Strike Up The Band, Tell Me Pretty Maiden, Violets and many more.

I am interested in this period of music in Singapore. If you can contribute some, please write in.
*http://www.imagesofasia.com/biography/html/singapore/Singapore_Postcards.php

Original article: Andy Lim.
Images 1,2: Singapore 500 Early Postcards: Cheah Jin Seng 296 pages. Published 2006. lst edition. ISBN: 9789814155984.

Image 3: for clarity, is my own enlargement of image 2.