Wu Bai
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 伍佰 & China Blue Wu Bai & China Blue |
|
|---|---|
| Country | Taiwan |
| Years active | 1992-present |
| Genres | Rock |
| Website(s) | wubai.com |
Wu Bai (Chinese: 伍佰; pinyin: Wǔ Bǎi, born January 14, 1968) is a rock singer from Taiwan. His real name is "Wu Chun Lin" (Chinese: 吳俊霖; pinyin: Wǔ Jǚn Lín). He forms a band with China Blue, comprising of Dean "Dino" Zavolta on drums, Yu Da Hao on keyboards, Zhu Jian Hui on bass and Wu Bai on guitar and lead vocals.
Wu Bai & China Blue released their first album in 1992. This is followed by performing live at pubs throughout Taiwan. Wu Bai is one of the majors if not the biggest Rock Star at the Mandarin Music territory which includes Taiwan, China , Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. He also has fans in Japan, USA, Canada and Australia. Throughout the years, he held numerous sold out concerts in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. His albums won many awards and also top the sales charts. He writes his own songs for his album and also writes songs for many popular artists, including Andy Lau, Wa Kin Chao, Karen Mok, Tracy Su, and Vivian Hsu.
As he became known as Taiwan's "King of Live Music", Wu Bai needed a dedicated backing band to follow up his breakthrough album. With Shiao Ju Zhu Jian Hui on bass, Big Cat Yu Da Hao on keyboards and Dino Zavolta Dean "Dino" Zavolta on drums, he created China Blue, a group of highly professional and experienced musicians to back him up on his mission to revolutionize Taiwanese rock.
In January 1996, Wu Bai & China Blue brought their powerful live show to Hong Kong for the first time to great success. Later that year they released the smash hit album "The End of Love", which sold over 600,000 copies and was honored by the China Times and the United Evening News as one of the year's Top 10 albums. The album also ranked in the Top 20 Music Videos of Channel V and was nominated by MTV channel for the best music video of the year.
After successfully representing Taiwan Beer in its new TV commercial, In June 1998, Wu Bai also appeared in a Chinese movie" Beautiful New World", plays the part of a street singer, he also writes and sings the title song for the movie.
In 1999, another movie that Wu Bai plays a part "The Personals" had very good box office sales. That November, Wu Bai releases his latest Mandarin album "White Dove" and started a tour of three cities in Taiwan. He held six sell out concerts in a gigantic tent called "Super Dome", which was also a ground breaking event for the Taiwanese concert scene. The album and the concerts were the first big events after Taiwan's devastating earthquake, which comforted so many people's broken hearts. As a result, Wu Bai is voted as the most popular singer of the year, and also rank number three as the many of the year that outnumbered Taiwan's President Lee.
In the year 2000, Wu Bai wrote and sang the theme song for the Pili movie "Legend of the Scared Stone". This time his backing music had a full orchestra, and the lyrics were written in ancient Chinese. Between March and April, Wu Bai and China Blue held three concerts in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. In Singapore, the Strait Times' headline after the concert was "King of Chinese Rock", in Malaysia, the media headline was "Cult Master arrived, all congregation bowed." and in Hong Kong, the whole audience stood up in the Stadium that has rules against standing during a concert. After these phenomenal successes, Wu Bai sang at Taiwan's new President's Inauguration, Singapore's National Day concert and Japan Fukuoka's Music Festival. In Fukuoka, Japanese audiences all stood up to enjoy the Mandarin concert even though they didn't understand the lyrics. Wu Bai has also appeared in Tsui Hark's movie "Time and Tide" as the lead actor, and also wrote two songs for the soundtrack.
With Wu Bai's distinctive blend of poetical lyrics with rock tunes, the band has won themselves fans throughout Asia. They have also made successful concert tours in the many cities.
