One Day in May…

… (and we were) here’s a whole article doing a quick introduction to the singer-songwriter.

First, a word on the name: in pinyin, his name is Lu Guangzhong (廬廣仲). Sadly, he has no Wikipedia page (English or Chinese), but a little intrepid Googling and a check of YesAsia gives his English name as “Vitas.” This article sheds a bit of light on the origins of the name. While on the pub circuit, he once sang a song imitating Russian singer Vitas, known for his high voice, and it got 200,000 listens on HitFM, creating a sort of Vitas trend. Now, it seems, he’s the “Vitas” of Taiwan. As far as English names go, it’s alright – puts him a bit in the category with Aska, Jam, Yoga and the rest – but not the worst (I was looking up the One Million Star program earlier this week to identify Yuming Lai, and I noticed that one of the finalists is called “Quack Wu”).

A Spanish major at Tamkang University, Vitas became known as the musician born of an accident – after an accident he spent a long period of time in the hospital, and during that time he started to play the guitar. Later he won an award at Tamkang University for a song contest in which he sang one of his own compositions, then he won a Chengchi University Golden Melody Prize. He grew up listening to western music and jazz, so from a very young age he could sing songs from Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton and Boyz II Men. Hmm, this is not a particularly appealing list, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Obviously he has experienced some success, as his song “Good Morning!!! (早安．晨之美)” off his first album by the same name was one of the Taiwan Music Workers Association picks for best songs of 2007, and it sold around 10,000 copies. Next week, he will release a new album, 100 Ways for Living (一百種生活), so he held a press conference this week.

Chengchi alum Cheer Chen was on hand to show her support; she explained, “This guy is amazing. Some people need love, freedom, other people’s respect; he only needs his glasses and guitar and he is satisfied.” Other fans include Fish Leong, Masa (of Mayday, naturally), Won Fu’s Xiao Min, Deserts Chang, Khalil Fong, Peggy Hsu, and Huang Hsiao-chen (黃小禎).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Cheer Chen, Mandopop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.