On December 1, the secretary of Hong Kong's leading musician Lai Oda posted an obituary on social networks, and Lai Xiaotian died peacefully at 7:55 a.m. at the age of 73. According to his wishes, the details of his illness will not be made public. >>> musician Li Xiaotian died of illness at the age of 73, and once held the red Zhang Guorong Mei Yanfang in one hand
This winter, bad news in the show business circle has been frequent, and the music masters have stayed in 2019 forever, going to heaven to reunite with his old friends.
Li Xiaotian. Graph source network
Lai Xiaotian's heyday was the 1970s and 1980s, when the Hong Kong music scene went from bud to glory, and he faded out of the entertainment industry more than a decade ago, coupled with the decline of the Hong Kong music scene, so for many mainland listeners, the name is slightly unfamiliar. But in fact, Li Xiaotian's position in the Hong Kong music scene can be compared with Japan's Hisaishi Jean and Akimoto Yasushi, who is not only the gold medal composer of the film and television drama soundtrack, but also opened the way for Zhang Guorong and Mei Yanfang to be the queen of heaven.
In 1977, atelecta's predecessor, Li Tv, held the "Asian Amateur Singing Competition", and one of the people sitting on the jury was Li Xiaotian.
At that time, Li Xiaotian was the treasure of Li's television, and "Jia Yan and Xiao Tian" hosted by Xue Jiayan can be said to be the first successful variety show in Hong Kong, and later TVB's famous "Happy Tonight" was originally opened to play "Jia Yan and Xiao Tian".
Old photo of "Jia Yan and Oda".
In this competition, Li Xiaotian met his partner and close friend Zhang Guorong in the years to come, but the first meeting between Li Xiaotian and Zhang Guorong, who was 22 years old at the time, had a small episode of choking each other.
The original version of Zhang Guorong's song "American Pie" was eight minutes long, far exceeding the stipulated time of the competition, and he himself later laughed at himself in "Tonight No Defense", which is a song as long as a water snake, and halfway through the song, Li Xiaotian rang the bell to interrupt Zhang Guorong's performance.
"Zhang Guorong, you stop." Li Xiaotian said to the young people on the stage.
But I didn't expect that the one on the stage was a bad temper: "This is my favorite song, and it doesn't make sense to sing half of it!" ”
In the end, Zhang Guorong was forced to sing a three-minute version, and this competition also allowed him to sign for Li's TV, but unfortunately, Li Xiaotian had the idea of leaving the TV station at that time. The acquaintance of the two people began with Li's TV, and the two predecessors of Li Xiaotian and Xue Jiayan also had many promotions for Zhang Guorong, but the fate of Bole and Maxima also had to go to the later Huaxing Records.
Group photo with Zhang Guorong. Graph source network
Zhang Guorong was the first male singer to sign huaxing records, and the agent he had just met at the time, Chen Shufen, was also the record company. Chen Shufen is recruiting singers for the TVB's newly established record label, and the two hit it off. The helmsman of Huaxing Records in terms of music is Li Xiaotian, so he is also responsible for the planning and coordination of records for Zhang Guorong, and personally wrote a number of compositions.
When zhang Guorong is mentioned, even friends who don't know him must be impressed by his thick and magnetic singing voice, which is actually the credit of Li Xiaotian. Zhang Guorong grew up in a relatively Westernized environment, and his two records "Daydreaming" and "Lover's Arrow" released on Li's television, the former was unsatisfied with the soil and the latter lost its characteristics in pursuit of grounding.
At Huaxing, Li Xiaotian not only composed, arranged, supervised and checked For Zhang Guorong, but also gave guidance to Zhang Guorong's singing voice. He asked Zhang Guorong to use the works of "Elvis Presley" as a template to change his singing voice and vocal style, so as to achieve a low, mournful and vicissitudes effect by separating the voice from the previous "chicken boy sound" and highlighting the sexy manly taste. Before Zhang Guorong deliberately imitated Guan Zhengjie, Rowan and other singers, Li Xiaotian also opposed it - he believed that what Zhang Guorong had to do was to establish his own uniqueness, after all, the people who listened to the record were not singers, and to let them imitate their own singing methods was equivalent to half the success.
According to Li Xiaotian's teachings, Zhang Guorong first used this singing method in a song called "The Wind Continues to Blow".
Zhang Guorong's "The Wind Continues to Blow" album cover.
Later stories we all know, this song changed Zhang Guorong's career, and even later Zhang Guorong's life experience, everyone is used to using the wind to refer to, including the last record containing the posthumous work "Everything Goes with the Wind".
If Li Xiaotian is Zhang Guorong's Bole, then for Mei Yanfang, he is a teacher with deep affection and righteousness.
Mui Yanfang's first tv appearance was to sing the famous Cantonese opera song "Di Nü Hua" in "Jia Yan and Oda", and then she participated in the TVB Rookie Singing Contest with encouragement from Lai Xiaotian. After winning the championship in one fell swoop, Li Xiaotian's Huaxing Records signed Mei Yanfang for 8 years.
Asked why he had to sign a new singer for so long, Li Xiaotian replied: "It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of hard work, so that I can rest assured that I will invest a lot of things in you and ask someone to cultivate you." ”
Mui Yanfang's route is also set by Li Xiaotian, the newly debuted Mui Yanfang is actually far from the style of the big sister later, and even taking off the thick coat when filming advertisements has psychological obstacles, it is Lai Xiaotian who sets a grudge and mournful bass route for her, and let her jump from a draft newcomer to the position after the first day in Hong Kong.
Li Xiaotian (center), Mei Yanfang (second from right).
It was a wonderful time for the Hong Kong music scene.
Once, Huang Xia helped Li Xiaotian's "Ask Me" to fill in the words, Li Xiaotian felt that Huang Xiaotian's words were not very good, so he made his own decision to change without Huang Caizi's knowledge, which made Huang Xia scold Li Xiaotian in the newspaper for three days - but the two people were still good friends, and they did not stop cooperating later.
Zhang Guorong left Huaxing Records in 1987 and suspended his musical cooperation with Li Xiaotian, but he still invited Li Xiaotian to the scene at the farewell concert, and even took him to run around the circle. Speaking of the person he is most grateful for in his music career, Zhang Guorong's first mention is Li Xiaotian.
"Next, allow me to spend a few hours thanking three friends, who are also one of the most important people in my music journey, the first being Michael Lee. Don't you see him look funny like Garfield all the time. But every time he did something, he was very serious. I remember at the beginning of the recording, the dog he used to scold was bloody, but this time I invited him to help me as a guest, because I wanted to ask him to share the happiness of my concert this time. ”
And the just mentioned Xue Jiayan, once the object of Li Xiaotian's pursuit, until the other day the two cooperated again, Li Xiaotian still held a rose in his mouth on the stage to court - Xue Jiayan of course rejected him, but it did not hinder the two people are still lifelong confidants, including on the night of November 30th, it is also Xue Jiayan who rushed to the hospital to see Li Xiaotian for the last time.
What a good era, what a good group of people. They were intimate with each other, and because of their talents, even the gossip in the Hong Kong music scene at that time shone with the brilliance of superstars.
But in the end, we will never go back, the superstars will eventually go away, only hope that they can meet in heaven, joke with each other, reminisce about the past, and talk about the era that once belonged to them.
□ Chen Han (Music Critic)
Beijing News editor Wu Longzhen proofreader Li Xiangling