Tam, Alan

(né Tam Wing Lun/Tan Yonglun)

b. 1950, Hong Kong

Pop musician

Nicknamed ‘The Headmaster’ of pop music in Hong Kong, Alan Tam was the most popular Cantonese singer in the 1980s. He reached his first career peak in the early 1970s as the lead singer in his band The Wynners, which mainly jammed English-language songs of the era. Yet the unassailable success of Alan was achieved after he left The Wynners in 1978. Since his first Cantonese album, Naughty Star (Fandou xing, 1979), Alan has released more than a hundred albums in twenty years. Romantic love songs are his trademark, especially The Root of Love’ (Ai di genyuan, 1984), ‘Mid-Autumn Romance’ (Aizai shenqiu, 1984) and the popular ‘The Trap of Love’ (Aiqing xianjing, 1985), which also initiated the disco culture in East Asia. Alan was the biggest winner of Hong Kong pop music awards in the 1980s, until he set an example, soon followed by Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung, of declining further awards in 1988.

Alan is the most ambitious singer of his generation and has expanded his musical triumphs into other arenas. From the 1980s onwards, he began his own businesses, ranging from restaurants and entertainment enterprises to telecommunications and the Internet. He was among the 800 elite voters who were asked to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 1997 and, in 2002, one of only eight representatives invited to endorse the reelection of the incumbent ruler. Alan Tam’s legacy is one of constant upward mobility.

SIMON SHEN