2011년 1월 30일 일요일

신중현(Shin Joong-hyeon) 누구인가?(who's the man?) Part2

Kim Chu Ja with Shin Joong Hyun & the Men (KO,1969):


This is a song with nice psych organ in late 60's psych pop style.

Joong Hyun & The Men (KO,1972):



A very good end 60's styled psychpop ballad. With some hobo, acoustic and electric guitars, drums, bass & organ, with fantastic psych instrumental part!
On vocals: Shin Joong Hyun & Park Kwang Su.

With Park Kwang Su on low vocals & with backing soprano female vocals, soprano sax ?, psych organ, drums. This is another fine song with some emotionality.

"From this record only the song on Side B(2) got a reissue in CD format in 2002, on The men compilation album. 
The men was his best days group with Yupjeons and made highest perfectionist songs because of the participation of Son Hak-Rae(Saxophone, Oboe).
They played mostly long time Psychedelic numbers and longer than original song at live show.
It was a great improvisation performance!! But sadly, live songs weren't recorded.
The Men members were
Shin Joong-Hyun(Lead guitar and vocal)
Lee Tae-Hyun(Bass)
Mun Yung-Bae(Drum)
Son Hak-Rae(Saxphone,Oboe)
Kim Gi-Pyu(Organ)
Park Kwang-Su(Vocal)
with guest vocalist(Kim Jung-Mi,Lim A-Yung,Joong Hyun etc.)
At this time Shin Joong Hyun had to consider both a Popular and Experimenting approach, like the record company demanded. So Side A contains popular short songs with a Guest singer and Side B are more longer psychedelic songs of his group the Men, with Joong Hyun and the men, Jiyeon and the men, Yoon Young-Kyun.
So you must pay attention to Side B songs!! Side B2 "Jandi(Lawn)" means Marijuana (local secret language). This song is a very unique and fascinating eastern psychedelic number.
Side B1 "Beautiful Rivers and Mountains" is a masterpiece song of Korean psychedelica. He wrote this song for a week at Korean group sound office room. This song is a about praising the nature of Korea.
-Park Jung-Hee (the President of South Korea from at these days a military regime was president of dictatorial government) commanded Shin Joong-Hyun to make the blue house (which is the Korean presidential residence) praising song but he rejected to do so and made the song "Beautiful rivers and mountains" instead,  that praised the beautiful nature of Korea.- Since then they were probly searching something to blame him more seriously..
Great psychedelic Gem and Eastern psychedelic style song! And you can hear nice fuzz guitar sounds at the latest section.

Ji Yeon & The Men (KO,1972) :


This is a fine psychedelic instrumental of the band, starting of with
melancholic organ. It has a great electric guitar improvisation. Basically it's a bass & drums psychedelic repetition, suitable for solo improvisations. It shows the guitarist's talent. But above all the organ solo/keyboard improvisation also is really excellent!

Yoon Young Kyun & the Men (KO,1973):

This is another psychedelic track.
The small song part itself is ok, but it's the large instrumental improvisation that really does it.
Here the organ solo is at its best, but also the group sound is best.Excellent psych! It also has an improvisation part on something that sounds like a hobo or clarinet. One of the best Korean psychedelic tracks I heard so far. With wa-wa guitar, lots of experimentation in organ sounds, etc.

Kim Sang Hee : Psychedelic Live Stage
with Shin Joong Hyun & Questions (KO,1970)


"How am I" starts like Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gada-Da-vida with some church organ. The song and singing that follows takes it first back to a kind of pop-song.
Technically the singing overloads a bit because this is a (still somewhat ok quality) bootleg recording.
The music repeats a certain rock pattern. But then it builds up quickly to psychedelic heights, first with organ, then after a while with electric wa-wa guitar outbursts on a bass repetition, until it comes back to the song. This track especially makes the recording interesting. Most of the rest is much more into mainstream territory.
"This record is live recording.  Side A recordings are pop styled, but Side B recordings are psychedelic styled. 
Especially Side B 3  "How am I?"  is a great Korean psychedelic live recording.
Shin joong-hyun thought to himself that she could also sing in Jefferson Airplane moods.  So I think that this song was similar to 'White Rabbit' of Jefferson airplane!!
Musical performance by Questions of Shin Joong-Hyun. 
I think that this record is a  her best recording and one of Korean psychedelic best live recordings!! Highly recommendable record!!

Shin Joong Hyun & Coins (KO,1974)


I still want to airplay this sweet (soft psych-rock) ballad,
but I might not have enough time to airplay anything of this boogie/blues-psychrock release.)It was airplayed before on WFMU by Tony Coulter.
"This record was reissued only CD format in 2003.
A Korean psychedelic rock masterpiece!! Only this album released about 500 copies!!
First pressing has not the A5 and B5 song, but only it just appeared the songs on the cover track list. Members are Shin Joong-Hyun(Guitar and Vocal)
Lee Nam-Lee (Bass)
Kim Ho-Sik(Drums)
It is a different Musical performance and Drummer compared to the second pressing. It contains a psychedelic music performance. First pressing was reissued on CD, but at the reissue there are dubbed guitar sounds.
The first pressing is in fact the best combination of styles (of Western rock music combined with Korean traditional rhythms) of all his records. It is a great eastern pyschedelia!! 
Only I just can say that "He almost completed his hope (to combine Western music with Korean traditional rhythm) at this album." Just you must feel it!!


신중현(Shin Joong-hyeon) 누구인가?(who's the man?) Part1

Shin Joong-hyeon (born January 4, 1938 in Seoul) is a South Korean rock guitarist and singer-songwriter. Known as Korea's "Godfather of Rock", he led Korean psychedelic pop/rock culture during 1960s and 1970s. His sons Shin Dae-cheol and Shin Yun-cheol are also respected guitarists in K-rock scene.

Biography

Shin Joong-hyeon was born in 1938, and his mother died when he was still a child. His father remarried to a Japanese woman, and Shin spent his youth with them in Manchuria and Japan. They were living in Chungcheong Province, Korea when Shin's father died in 1952 and his stepmother the next year. Shin moved to Seoul on his own, working in a pharmacy and going to night school. He taught himself to play the guitar, and began giving lessons at a music institute in Jongno. In 1957 he began playing for the U.S. army in Korea, using the stage name "Jackie Shin". He continued performing for the U.S. troops for the next decade. Shin claims that the U.S. Army bases are where Korean rock was born. "At that time, Korean clubs only played 'trot,' tango, music like that," he remembers.

His psychedelic style of music fascinated the U.S. soldiers, and some record companies asked him to make LPs. His cover of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly is a legend today.[citation needed] His first recording in 1959 was covers of traditional Korean music. He managed his own band, Add 4, in 1961. Add 4 was the first rock band in Korea, and their music style was similar to the Ventures.

Shin did not gain mainstream success in Korea until 1968. In 1968 he produced the hit album Nima for the high school group The Pearl Sisters. For the next seven years he wrote many songs and produced several more hit records for singing groups. Many of these recordings featured Shin's "fuzzy" guitar and psychedelic musical style. His melodies were simple and fascinating, like "KeoPi HanJan" (커피 한잔) or "GeoJitMalIYa" (거짓말이야).

In 1972 South Korean president Park Chung Hee asked Shin to write a song in praise of the president. Shin refused and instead wrote a song about the beauty of Korea, called "AhReumDaUn GangSan" (아름다운강산). After this his music career began to suffer from police harassment and governmental interference. Some of his songs were banned as "vulgar" or "noisy", and in August 1975, he was arrested for "involvement" with marijuana.

After his release, he was banned from public performance for years. With the death of Park Chung Hee, he was free to perform, but public tastes in music had changed by then. "It was all, 'Let's work hard,' and 'Let's be happy' kind of stuff. It was completely physical, with no spirit, no mentality, no humanity. That trend has carried over all the way to today..." according to Shin.

During the 1980s, Shin ran a music club in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood popular with foreign visitors and U.S. Army personnel. He opened "Woodstock", another music club, in southeast Seoul in 1986, and ran it for the next two decades. Among Shin's 1990–2000 works, MuWiJaYeon (無爲自然, 1994) is his finest album.[citation needed] His electric guitar sanjo proved he still does musical experiments. His legendary albums were reissued as LP miniature CDs in 2002–03.

In 2004, Shin provided the musical score for director Im Kwon-taek's film Low Life. After announcing his retirement in 2006, Shin returned on May 17, 2008 for a public performance with three of his sons at the sixth annual Korean Music Festival held at the Hollywood Bowl.

Discography
The Add 4 Era

•(1959) Guitar Meolody Compilation [Shin Joong-hyeon]
•(1964) The Woman in Rain-The Add 4 First Album [Add 4]
•(1966) The Ventures of Korea, Add 4 : Shin Joong-hyeon Insturumental Arrange Compilation Vol.1 [Add 4]
•(1967) The Woman in Rain [Blooz Tet]
•(1968) Enjoy the Guitar Intrrumental Twist [Add 4]

The Superstar Era : producer, singer-songwriter and guitarist

  • (1969) Green Apple [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (1969) No/Spring Rain [Lee Jeong-hwa / Donkeys]
  • (1969) Before too late / Sgt.Kim from Vietnam [Kim Chu-ja]
  • (1969) Bell-bottom Trousers/Dear [Pearl Sisters]
  • (1970) Hello/You're a Fool [Questions]
  • (1970) Hit Instrumental Compilation vol.1 [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (1970) In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida [Shin Joong-hyeon / Questions]
  • (1971) Sound [Shin Joong-hyeon and his combo band]
  • (1972) Setting Sun/Woman in the Mist/Beautiful Korea [Jang Hyeon / Shin Joong-hyeon and The Men] 
    • Partly reissued as CD 'GeoJitMalIYa', three 20 mins psyche jam pieces
  • (1972) No/Don't Say to Go [Kim Jeong-mi]
  • (1972) Angel/I ... You [Seo Yu-seok]
  • (1972) Your Dream/Little Ship [Yang Hee-eun]
  • Shin Joong-hyeon's compositions of Seo Yu-seok and Yang Hee-eun albums reissued as 1CD
  • (1973) Wind [Kim Jeong-mi]
  • (1973) Now [Kim Jeong-mi]
Shin Jung-hyeon Bands Er
  • (1974) The Beauty/Think of You [Shin Junh-hyeon and YeopJeons]
  • (1975) Beautiful Korea/Mountain and River [Shin Joong-hyeon and YeopJeons]
  • (1975) Instrumental Best [Shin Joong-hyeon and YeopJeons]
  • (1980) Nobody Here But/Whenever See You [Shin Joong-hyeon and Music Power]
  • (1980) Please Wait/Even Your Leaving [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (1982) The Satellite I Shot/As Waiting Somebody [Shin Joong-hyeon and Music Power]
  • (1983) Let's Go/Happy [Shin Joong-hyeon and SeNaGeuNe]
Solo
  • (1988) During the Days/Winter Park [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (1994/2CD) Do Nothing, Let it be [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (1997/2CD) A Tribute to Shin Joong-hyeon [Various Artists]
  • (1998/2CD) Kim SatGat [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (2002/5CD Box) Not for Rock [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (2002/2CD Box) Body and Feel [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (2006) The Crane of a City [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (2006) Comfortably Safe [Shin Joong-hyeon]
  • (2007) Anthology [Shin Joong-hyeon]
References  
  1. Hollywood Bowl 2008: The 6th Korean Music Festival (Program Guide). Los Angeles: Hankook Ilbo. 2008. p. 10. 
  2.  Russell, Mark James (2008). "The Golden Age of Korean Rock". Pop Goes Korea; Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music, and Internet Culture. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. p. 140. ISBN 978-1-933330-68-6. 
  3. Russell, p. 141.
  4.  Russell, p. 142.
  5.  Russell, p. 143.
  6.  Kim, Hee-kyoung (2006-12-07). "록의 대부 신중현, 마지막 발길…" (in Korean). Hankook Ilbo. http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200612/h2006120718200384220.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-19. 
  7. "2008 - The 6th Hollywood Bowl Korean Music Festival". www.koreanmusicfestival.com. http://www.koreanmusicfestival.com/. Retrieved 2008-05-19.