Since I haven't had time to write anything for my music blog this month, instead I'm posting some videos relating to one of the things that's kept me too busy to write. Yesterday (July 30) at Tiehua Village in Taidong I participated in a rather special concert. Having spent a number of years collecting and researching recorded Taiwanese Aboriginal music from the past half century, I've collected a lot of records featuring a lot of impressive singers, some of whom I've become personally acquainted with. So working with the people at Tiehua Village, I helped to organize a concert featuring some of these singers. Their original records were for the most part recorded over 50 years ago, with the exception of one whose record was released in 1979. Of the five singers at the show, four are in their 70s (the oldest, 陳玉英, is 78) and the youngest (王秋蘭) is 61. We asked them to sing some of the songs they recorded all those years ago, and before each song I played a minute or so of the original recordings. It was a very interesting experience and apparently everyone enjoyed themselves a lot. The following are videos taken when the singers were practicing at their homes (except the youngest one, who since she lives in Kaohsiung on the other side of Taiwan did a quick rehearsal right before the show) and the finale of the show itself, when all the singers got on stage together to sing a pair of Japanese-language songs that were popular in the Taidong area over half a century ago (and as far as I have been able to determine originated there), opened by an Amis version of one of them peformed by the original vocalist, Amis singer 李原信.
The singers at the show included 陳玉英(Puyuma), 吳花枝(Puyuma), 王秋蘭(Paiwan), and 李原信 & 汪寶蓮(Amis).
李原信 & 汪寶蓮 rehearsal
陳玉英 rehearsal
吳花枝 rehearsal, featuring some photos from her youth
Show Finale
[Update: I believe all of the show is now on Youtube in segments which are all labelled "黑膠年代．台灣山地歌謠之部落歌星再現@鐵花村 20160730"]
