Monday, March 26, 2012
more manna.
Gu Mei (real name: Gu Jia-Mi, In English- Carrie Ku/Koo Mei) was born in 1934. Nicknamed "Lovebird" in her youth, at the height of her career she was dubbed "Little Skylark". She hails from Suzhou, in Jiangsu province in Southeastern China. In 1949 she moved to Hong Kong and two years later began to perform, landing a role in a Cantonese film "The Second Wife". By the next year she was acting and singing in Mandarin language films; her first song being called "I Don't Want to Be Apart from You".
In the 1950s she was signed to Great World, Big China and Phillips records, and largely remained a second tier actress. 1958 she went to Thailand to promote one of her movies, and she was invited to stay and make films there, where she became fluent in Thai and gained considerable popularity as a singer and actress in Bangkok. After her return to Hong Kong her popularity continued to increase on into the early sixties, as she continued to act, and her voice became familiar through the title songs of popular films ("Mountain Song" and "Dreams" - the latter is track 4 on this disc). Considered primarily a singer with only a few uneven appearances in films, in 1965 she starred in the Shaw Brothers' movie "The Lark" to great success and acclaim for both her singing and acting.
In 1969 she found herself free of all contracts, and she moved to Taiwan. There she began to host a variety show, "Everyday a Star" on TV. In 1971 she released her final record, a collaborative album with Chen Fen-Lan, another famous singer at the time in Taiwan. Her final movie was a Taiwanese ghost film, "The Bride From Hell". From that time on, she has neither sang nor acted, but instead started to paint. She has had many exhibitions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, America and Canada. In 1977 she received an award from the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts. In May 1998, having not performed in 27 years, she sang as a favor for her brother at one of his concerts. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.- remorseful prober via what's in my ipod
another virgin being birthed. grab the only other album i could find from her here at this site.
edit: i stand corrected. gary at bodega pop already beat me to the punch with posting this gem. well, you can't always be king of the mountain eh?
ps thanks gary for letting me know. i bought this at a local store around here, & the dude knew nothing about it, & i couldn't find anything out about her other than on that ipod blog. it makes me feel like a writer for the new york times. pinky promise i will fact check before i just run my mouth.
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ReplyDeletehttp://bodegapop.blogspot.com/2011/06/carrie-ku-mei.html
aw dooder i'm sorry. i feel like a dick now.
ReplyDeleteThis lady is a real delight.
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