PANCY LAU (劉鳳屏) "快回頭望一望" (1969)

Pancy Lau (Lau Fung Ping, 劉鳳屏 or 刘鳳屏, also referred to as Liu Feng Ping) was born sometimes in the late 40s / early 50s in a family of musicians; her father Lau Bak Lok (劉伯樂) - also known as Tin Ngai (天涯) - was a well-known Cantonese Opera Star. He was her very first music teacher, and guided her through the entertainment world.

Her career started when she was around 8 or 9 years old singing Cantonese Opera. As a teenager she transitioned to singing songs she enjoyed: Pop music. During the early 60s she participated two times in the Sing Tao Daily Singing Competition in Hong Kong with no significant results. In 1965 at last she won the Mandarin section of the 6th edition of the contest with the song "三年" (Three Years). Upon winning the competition, she became a resident singer at the prestigious Golden Crown Night Club (金冠).

Television Broadcasts Limited (電視廣播有限公司), commonly known as TVB, commenced broadcasting in Hong Kong on 19 November 1967. Pancy Lau was one of the first musical artists who participated in the popular show "歡樂今宵" (Enjoy Yourself Tonight), which was the longest running variety show in Hong Kong's television history.

In 1968 Fung Hang Records released her debut album entitled "My Heart Is Beating - 我的心蹦蹦跳". The album was the first in a long series of recordings that continued for more than fifteen years.

Following two EPs entitled "水長流" ("Water Flows Long") and "山前山後百花开" ("When the Flowers Bloom On Mount Qian Shan"), Pancy Lau's second album - the subject of this post - was finally published in late 1969.

Entitled "快回頭望一望" ("Quickly Take a Look Behind"), the record was a huge success with no less than four editions published - and sometimes also bootlegged - by different labels in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. At the time, a lot of popular music was coming from being featured on television or were theme songs from television drama series. The album, however, did not need any push from the media to become an instant hit, as it contained enough fresh material to estabilish itself as a modern classic.

For a more detailed biography of Pancy Lau I suggest that you read a previous post I dedicated to her here on Stereo Candies: "The Very Best of Pancy Lau Volume 1 [1968-70]".

快回頭望一望" ("Quickly Take a Look Behind") contains twelve songs - including the eight tracks already released on her previous EPs back in 1968-69: tracks 03, 05, 06 and 07 were released on FHEP 610, while tracks 02, 04, 08 and 10 were released on FHEP 611... Here's the complete track list:

01. 快回頭望一望 (2:57)
02. 山前山後百花開 (2:18)
03. 水長流 (3:35)
04. 送君 (3:07)
05. 不如不嫁了 (2:18)
06. 我的心裡有個他 (2:13)
07. 姑娘的心意 (2:02)
08. 媽媽您在何方 (2:30)
09. 爲甚麽 (2:04)
10. 寂靜的夜 (2:29)
11. 處處吻 (2:03)
12. 討厭的電話鈴 (2:14)

All tracks were remastered from the original vinyl release in July 2013 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with complete artwork reconstruction and printable PDF files.

As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.




The music on tracks 01, 02, 04, 08, 09, 10, 11 and 12 is played by 太陽神樂隊 (The Apollo), an Hong Kong prolific studio band that reached a cult status in the region during the late 60s / early 70s. Their name has probably been borrowed from the Teisco / Kawai manufactured Apollo model guitar from that time period.

They recorded a lot of instrumental albums, a few of them for New Wave Record Co. (新風) and most of them for Life Records (麗風); they were also featured as a backing band on countless releases by popular singers like Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), Frances Yip (葉麗儀), Stella Chee (奚秀蘭) and Pancy Lau, of course.

Tracks 03, 05, 06 and 07 were probably recorded in an earlier session, and were arranged and conducted by Joseph Koo (顧嘉煇). Koo is a famous composer and arranger, and one of the most respected authors of Cantopop songs; he is considered the Godfather of Hong Kong pop music. During his career he has created more than 1.200 original compositions and many of them have become classics, including various themes of popular TV series.

In 1962, he composed his first hit (Mandarin Chinese) song "夢" (Dream) and later another hit song "郊道" (Country Road). In 1974, he wrote the first Cantonese TV theme song "啼笑姻緣" (Between Tears and Laughter), which became the actual first popular Cantopop song.



Here's what I discovered searching information about the songs included on this album; the translations of the song titles are approximate in most cases, but anyway...:

01. "快回頭望一望" (Quickly Take a Look Behind), the album title track, is one of Pancy Lau's signature songs. During the years it has been covered many times and has become a karaoke classic.

02. The original version of the sweet "山前山後百花开" (When the Flowers Bloom On Mount Qian Shan) was recorded in 1962 by 劉韻 (Liu Yun, available here). The song was also later covered by 姚蘇蓉 (Yao Su Rong, available here) and 奚秀兰 (Stella Chee, here), among others.

03. "水長流" (Water Flows Long) originated from a 1959 Japanese song entitled "大川ながし" by 美空ひばり (Misora Hibari, available here). It was later translated into a Taiwanese song in 1967, "快樂的農家" and recorded by 陳芬蘭 (Chen Fen Lan, available here). The song was also recorded by 鄧麗君 (Teresa Teng, available here), 姚蘇蓉 (Yao Su Rong, here) and many others.

04. "送君" (Farewell) was originally performed in 1939 by singer / actress 周璇 (Zhou Xuan), one of China's seven great singing stars; you can listen and watch the original version here.

05. "不如不嫁了" (How About I Don't Get Married) seems to be an original composition and I wasn't able to find any other information about it, except the name of its authors: music by 曹嘈 and words by 馮美葆.

06. "我的心裡有個他" (There Is Somebody In My Heart) was adapted from a Japanese song recorded by 翁倩玉 (Judy Ongg, available here) in 1967; it was also recorded by 鄧麗君 (Teresa Teng).

07. "姑娘的心意" (A Maiden's Heart) is another adaptation of a song imported from Japan. The original was popularized by 美空ひばり (Misora Hibari, available here - the song begins at about 2:00); the Mandarin version was also successfully performed by 張露 (Chang Loo).

08. "媽媽您在何方" (Mother, Where Are You?) is a very sad song adapted, once again, from a Japanese composition which was originally performed in 1952 by 美空ひばり (Misora Hibari, available here - the song begins at about 00:30). In early 2013 the song was used in a bizarre commercial performed by Will Ferrell.

09. I guess that "爲甚麽" (Why?) is probably an original composition - and not one of the highlights of the album -, sorry but I wasn't able to find any relevant information about it...

10. "寂靜的夜" (The Silence of the Night) is a Mandarin version of the Japanese classic "ウナ・セラ・ディ東京 - Una sera di Tokyo" (One Night in Tokyo), which was initially performed in 1963 by vocal duo ザ・ピーナッツ (The Peanuts) with the title "東京たそがれ」" (Tokyo Twilight). When touring Japan in1964, famous Italian singer Milva recorded her own version adding the 'Una sera di Tokyo' line to the refrain. The song became successfull and The Peanuts re-recorded it with the new title and lyrics.

11. I can't find anything about the closing numbers on the album; "處處吻" (Kissing Everywhere) is probably another original song that will remain a mistery, at least for me...

12. Well, the telephone bell on "討厭的電話鈴" (An Annoying Telephone Call) is really irritating! It would be great if someone could share any information about the origin of this song, so if you can help, please get in touch!

The following clips offers a preview of the remastered album, please enjoy my favourite tracks: "快回頭望一望" ("Quickly Take a Look Behind"), "我的心裡有個他" (There Is Somebody In My Heart), "姑娘的心意" (A Maiden's Heart) and "寂靜的夜" (The Silence of the Night)!

More information about Pancy Lau is available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Hong_Kong

http://home.ied.edu.hk/~hkpop/music/hkpophistory.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dk_gilbert/sets/72157608139056712/

http://www.goldenage.hk/b5/ga/ga_article.php?article_id=1079

http://paper.wenweipo.com/2007/04/21/EN0704210024.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUIeOiDudhg&feature=related

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/vinyl-history/article?mid=42&l=f&fid=12

http://www.funghang.com/200610/asp/disc_list.asp?class1=6&singer=%E5%8A%89%E9%B3%B3%E5%B1%8F

http://blog.roodo.com/muzikland/archives/2578425.html

http://baike.baidu.com/view/5637119.htm

http://www.vinylparadise.com/4pop_can/1/066LFP0A.htm

http://www.inkui.com/a1/A/A4A8B8CB7ABE6FF6C1CF_a.html

http://robokon.orgfree.com/5080/5080_LauFungPing.htm

http://mypaper.pchome.com.tw/chrishui/post/1276979467

http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/%E5%8A%89%E9%B3%B3%E5%B1%8F

http://www.whatsinmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1004%3A2012-04-02-19-44-12&catid=75%3A2012-03-30-21-17-42&lang=tw

I'm currently trying to compile a Pancy Lau exhaustive discography, my work-in-progress is available here.

All my posts dedicated to Pancy Lau on this blog are available here.

In the next months I will post more Hong Kong/Taiwan/Singapore/etc. Pop/Instrumental records released in the late-60s / mid-70s. As usual, I would like to provide information about these releases and their authors.

Unfortunately the Internet doesn't offer much information - written in English - about these artists and this is the reason why I need help: if you can translate from Chinese to English please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you so much!

It's been difficult to obtain these vinyls, some are not in the best conditions and I'm currently working hard to properly master them. It seems that these artists and their music are poorly known in the West, of course it's a real pity because they made stunning releases: I'd like to share them with you with a proper presentation, hope that someone will be able to help.