Beijing, 5 May (ZXS) -- Hu Defu, the "father of Taiwanese folk songs," who is "constantly sounding."

China Newsweek reporter Qiu Guangyu

In March 2023, "the father of Taiwanese folk songs" Hu Defu sang a song "Olive Tree" with singer Na Ying in the program "Endless Sound - Treasure Island Season". This is the first time the two have collaborated, and they look at each other from a distance through video.

Hudev stands next to the beautiful landscape of Sun Moon Lake, he is 72 years old, his white hair is as dazzling as snow, his bronzed skin looks particularly unique in front of the camera, and his temperament is still as bold and simple as twenty years ago.

Hudev is an important presence in the history of Chinese pop music. In the 70s of last century, Hu Defu, Li Shuangze, Yang Xian and others launched the "Folk Song Movement" in Taiwan, and they created a large number of songs and spread them. Since then, the further development of the Chinese music scene, and the emergence of a large number of excellent records and original singers, are also thanks to their cheerful call in those years.

Today, Hudev still sings. Even as he gets older, he's always ready to go, go to more places, and listen to the locals. As he himself said, he would always write and sing. "Until the green silk turns to snow, the dead leaves will refuse to fall."

Photo courtesy of interviewee.

A treasure forgotten by time

In 2005, at the age of 55, Hudev released his first album, Rush, which collected 12 songs he had written over the past three decades. The album's spectacle was stunning, and his peers came out to speak out to tell the public who Hudev was and how much of his contribution to the folk song movement he had. Li Zongsheng and others also went to his concert. In 2006, "Wind in the Pacific" on this album won two honors at the Taiwan Golden Melody Award for Best Lyrics and Best Song. At this point, people understood that Hudev's voice was a treasure forgotten by time.

In June 2006, the 6th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards Ceremony was held in Taipei. Hudev's gray and white checkered coat unveiled. Photo courtesy of Visual China

One night in July 2006, at the Yugong Moving Mountain Bar where Beijing's literary and artistic youth gathered, Hu Dev sang "The Earliest Mother's Feeling, the Earliest Awakening" in a vicissitudes and simple voice, and many people shed tears. That night, Hudev was equally excited with the audience, and he was surprised to find that young people in distant Beijing could sing along to his songs and be familiar with the stories in his songs.

Standing on the threshold of time, recalling the past, Hudev seems to have those scenes of his youth in front of his eyes. He describes how when he started writing songs, it felt like he suddenly pushed a door open. It is also as his college teacher, the poet Yu Guangzhong's poem "Folk Singer", wrote: "A dawn, fragrant as the Book of Poetry." ”

In 1971, in order to earn money to support his family, the 21-year-old Hu Dev began to work as a resident singer at the "Columbia Cafe" in Taipei, and his usual job was to sing English songs. At that time, due to the limitations of the times, the subject matter of Taiwanese pop music was still very narrow, and there was not even a Chinese music scene or an album at that time.

"Columbia Cafe" gathered a group of the most famous literary and artistic young people at that time, including the painter Li Shuangze, the musician Yang Xian, and the yet famous Zhang Aijia and Hu Yinmeng. Li Shuangze knew that Hudev was a Taiwanese minority and became interested in his songs, but he found that Hudev had been singing English songs. So, one day, Li Shuangze asked Hudev to sing a song in the national language on the spot. Hudev sang the Beinan song "Beautiful Ear of Rice", and the audience had never heard such a melody and language, and they were mesmerized.

In August 2016, Taiwan's famous singer Hu Defu sang "Years and Mountains and Rivers" at the Tianjin Grand Theatre. Photo by Zhang Daozheng

Later, Li Shuangze enthusiastically encouraged Hudev to write his own songs. What to write? For years in the city, Hudev thought, he had missed the cattle he fed, the eagles flying high, and even the uneven mountain roads. Li Shuangze told him that the life of herding cattle can of course be written into songs. So, Hudev wrote his first song, "The Child on the Back of a Cow".

In 1973, Li Shuangze also held the first folk song concert in Taiwanese history with Hu Defu. Later, through the spread of radio and concerts, people heard works such as "Four Rhymes of Homesickness", "On the Rivers and Lakes", "Rondo" and so on. People discovered that they could sing modern poetry, homesickness, and land without following in the footsteps of other people's cultures.

In May 2016, the "Noise Reduction IV Rock Folk Song Concert Series" Taiwanese folk song Taidou Hu Defu sang in Beijing. Photo by Yan Min

"The Father of Taiwanese Folk Songs"

Over the years, Hudev remembered one taste: the aroma of sautéed cabbage. It was the 20s of the 60th century, he went from Taitung to Taipei and went to Tamjiang Middle School. At that time, Taipei was very far away in his heart. He didn't go home during the holidays, and in the huge school cafeteria, there were only two people, him and his senior. Whenever he smelled the aroma of stir-fried food in the restaurant, he would think of the days when in the mountains, after the rice was harvested and fallow, farmers would plant cabbage and rape flowers in the field. His mother would stir-fry the dish with ginger and dip it in soy sauce for everyone to eat.

This taste is actually the starting point of Hudev's departure and the nostalgia that cannot be dissolved in the future. Even if he later became the "father of Taiwanese folk songs", he had little attachment to the spotlight and the stage. He knows who he is singing for and why he should stay on stage in order to sing the feelings.

In September 2009, the memorial meeting for the "9 Flood" was held at the Kaohsiung City Dome, with about 88,5000 people attending. The picture shows the famous Taiwanese singer Hu Defu leading nine children to appear, singing songs to mourn the deceased and pray for the victims of the disaster. Photo by Dong Huifeng

He is a child who grew up in love, and the original intention of becoming a singer is also for his family. When he went to work in a café, he dropped out of school. At that time, he was hit by a game of rugby, suffered a concussion, and had to take a break from school. Soon after, his father suffered from cancer, and in desperation, he took his father to Taipei for treatment, worked several jobs to see his father, and gave up his studies. During his part-time job, ethnic minority singer Wan Shalang recruited Hudev to work part-time in his own band, and he embarked on the road of professional musician. Later, the band disbanded, and he was introduced to the "Columbia Cafe", where he met Li Shuangze and Yang Xian.

After Li Shuangze's death, Hudev and his friends compiled and composed their friends' works with grief, and continued to sing publicly. Since then, some singers of the same period have begun to become professional musicians and singers. Hu Defu began to focus on the social rights of Taiwan's ethnic minorities. While doing these things, he traveled to nearly 300 tribes in Taiwan to collect folk songs of Taiwan's ethnic minorities. That's twenty years.

For a long time, Hudev left the stage and experienced a lot of setbacks in his life, until around 2002, some old friends in the music industry found him and persuaded him to come out and release a physical album, which can also leave a memorial for himself. Hudev embraced the idea. But instead of opting for an industrialized recording method, he returned to his alma mater, Tamkang Middle School, to find the old piano he had played before. Although the strings had broken twice, he knew that the feeling was right when he started playing. In the end, the 12 songs in "Rush" were all recorded on campus in the most original way.

In May 2016, the "Noise Reduction IV Rock Folk Song Concert Series" Taiwanese folk song Taidou Hu Defu sang in Beijing. Photo by Yan Min

Years of wandering have passed, and now, Hudev has finally gained a rare peace. In the past, he always traveled around the world non-stop, performing and participating in events. In the past few years of the epidemic, he has more rest time, and he can quietly read books under the eaves of the balcony and listen to his children and grandchildren chat. He once received care and nourishment from his family, and now he is back in that joy.

Write greater nostalgia

Hudev loves love life, and he will talk about friends, food, the big rivers he has seen on the mainland, the scenery of various places, and the interesting facts of his relatives and friends. In addition to Taiwanese minority languages and Mandarin, he can imitate his relatives and friends and speak a decent Shandong dialect.

The seeds of language and thought were planted in his youth, and in his early years as a folk singer, he first sang Chinese new poems. He composed and sang Zhou Mengdie's poems "Under the Bodhi Tree" and "Moon River", which moved Tao Xiaoqing, the promoter and host of the folk song movement, to tears. Later, at a folk song concert, Hudev sang "Four Rhymes of Nostalgia" in the afterlight, and the strong reaction of the audience made his heart unable to calm down. He suddenly had a deeper feeling, realizing that the grand nostalgia in Yuguang's poetry was a different feeling from his own family lovers. Since then, Hudev has begun to step out of the world of personal emotions and consciously write about that broader nostalgia.

In June 2015, the concert "Folk Song 6: Sing Another Thought" was held at the Taipei Arena. Dozens of well-known singers, including Qi Yu, Li Zongsheng and Pan Yueyun, gathered together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the rise of Taiwan's folk song movement. The picture shows Hudev and others singing "Descendants of the Dragon". Photo by Zheng Qiao

Later, Hudev deepened ties with friends on the mainland. In 1989, he was invited to Yunnan to attend a music symposium and took the opportunity to accompany some friends to search for relatives in the mainland. He saw the scene of those long-separated relatives meeting again, and this strong emotional impact made him speechless and could only secretly hide behind the pillar and cry. Later, he performed on the mainland several times, and he had more friends. He met friends such as Cui Jian and the Hang Gai Band. Over the years, he has been thinking about these old friends and the taste of Beijing hot pot.

In 2021, Hudev released an original album "The Last Hunter". In this new album, he sings lyrics in Taiwanese minority languages, Mandarin, and ancient poetry. In the song, several cultures merge, combined with his vicissitudes of voice and clean piano accompaniment, not only is not cluttered, but appears simple and poetic.

In April 2016, at the 04 Wuhan Strawberry Music Festival, Taiwanese folk song master Hu Defu sang. Photo by Guo Liangshuo

In recent years, he has added the verse of the Tang poem "Return to the Hometown Puppet Book" to his songs: "The young left home and the old man returned, and the rural voice did not change and the mane declined." What can trigger his homesickness may be the faces of his deceased mentors and friends, or the longing for the mountains and the sea when he set out from the tribe alone to study in Taipei. He was originally singing homesickness for them, and before he knew it, these nostalgia had also transformed into his own homesickness. And this kind of nostalgia continues to be sung and circulated on the stage of "Endless Sound Treasure Island Season", in the real mountains and seas, through the chorus that crosses geographical distances. (End)