Cui Jian
Introduction
If there is a single person who best signifies China's growing
hunger for rock and roll it is Cui Jian. Known to all as Lao Cui,
he is recognized as the father of rock and roll in China and
compared to Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen by the
western media.
Cui Jian was born into an ethnically Korean family. His father
is a professional trumpet player and his mother a member of a
Korean minority dance troupe. An accomplished classical trumpet
player, Lao Cui became a member of the prestigious Beijing
Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981. It is here in the early eighties
that Cui Jian becomes smitten by Western rock and roll as he begins
to listen to music tapes spirited into the country by tourists and
foreign students. Inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan and Simon and
Garfunkel, he learns to play guitar and is soon singing in
public.
Then in 1984, Cui Jian and six other classical musicians form
the band "Seven Ply Board". Playing western pop songs, they perform
in small restaurants and hotels around Beijing. It is one of the
first bands of its kind in China. This year Cui Jian also records
his first album, Langzigui. Although he does not contribute lyrics,
the record's attempts at progressive arrangements and the inventive
production are fresh experiments in the world of Chinese music.
They provide the earliest glimpse of Cui Jian's musical character
as it will later emerge.
By the mid eighties the bulk of western rock music has found its
way into China's cultural underground and The Beatles, Rolling
Stones, Talking Heads and the Police are influencing Cui Jian. His
earliest effort is a rock/rap number entitled "It's Not That I
Don't Understand".
In 1985, Cui Jian first attracts attention with an appearance in
a Beijing talent contest. Even at this early stage in his career,
Cui Jian's songs show a preoccupation with weighter issues than the
usual gauzy romantic fantasies expressed in the pop ballads of the
day. He dares to address such sensitive topics as individualism and
sexuality.
To a generation numbed by the deadening propaganda of the
Cultural Revolution, the honesty of Cui Jian's lyrics is like a
clarion call. The entire music scene in China is about to make a
giant leap forward.
In May of 1986 at a Beijing concert commemorating the Year of
World Peace, Cui Jian climbs onto the stage in peasant clothing and
belts out his latest composition, "Nothing To My Name". As the song
ends, a stunned audience erupts in a standing ovation. Before long,
young people all over China are banging out.
Cui Jian songs on beat-up guitars in campus dormitories and
sidewalk cafes. Cui Jian officially leaves the Beijing Philharmonic
Orchestra and begins working with Ado, a Beijing band that includes
two renegade foreign embassy employees, a Hungarian bassist and
Madagascan guitarist.
In 1986 Cui Jian releases what he considers to be his first real
album, Rock 'N' Roll On The New Long March". The album includes the
first recording of "Nothing To My Name" and becomes the biggest
selling album in China's history. In his later works, he has also
begun to experiment with rap music, adding a drummer/MC to his band
for The Power of the Powerless (1998). Cui Jian's own long march
begins and China will never be the same.
More info please click http://www.myspace.cn/cuijian
