Dancing Club on Air

The recording industry and radio gave a strong push to the development of Canto pop. In 1952, Wo Sing Record Company produced a series of records explicitly entitled ‘Canto pop songs’ which aimed for the South-east Asian market. Soon there followed a radio program on Rediffusion called ‘Dancing Club on Air’, which was actually created in response to demand from that same market. Among the major contributors to the program were Lui Hung, Hui Yim-chau and Sin Kim-lai, most of whom had a strong background in Canto opera, but were open to new possibilities in modernizing their art.

Chou Chung was the host for ‘Dancing Club on Air’. His early training was in the theatre and jazz drums, and only got acquainted with the Canto opera tradition when he arrived in Hong Kong after the War. He became a bandleader at nightclubs, and was prolific in composing songs and writing lyrics since the 1950s. For these, he earned Wong Jum-sum’s accolade as the ‘the Father of Canto pop’.

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