The Seven Great Singing Stars () were seven singers of China in the 1940s.

Background

Several of the stars acted in films, and their music played a prominent role in developing

Chinese cinema The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese languages, Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 in China, 1896 and the first C ...

. They dominated the Chinese pop music industry in the 1930s and 1940s, which was centered in Shanghai, and often performed in a genre known as

Shidaiqu Shidaiqu () is a type of Chinese popular music that is a fusion of Chinese folk, American jazz and Hollywood film music that originated in Shanghai, China in the 1920s.Shoesmith, Brian. Rossiter, Ned. 004(2004). Refashioning Pop Music in Asia ...

(). Amongst the earliest of the stars to emerge in the 1930s were Zhou Xuan,

Gong Qiuxia Gong Qiuxia, also romanized as Kung Chiu-hsia (4 December 1918 – 7 September 2004) was a Chinese actress and singer. By the 1940s, she became one of the seven great singing stars.Baidu.Baidu" ''Gong Qiuxia.'' Retrieved on 28 April 2007. Biog ...

Yao Lee Yao Lee (; 10 September 1922 – 19 July 2019), also credited as Yao Li, Yiu Lei and Hue Lee, was a Chinese singer active from the 1930s to the 1970s. She was the sister of Yao Min, also a famous singer and songwriter. She was considered one o ...

, and

Bai Hong Bai Hong (, 24 February 1920 – 28 May 1992) was a Chinese actress and singer born Bai Lizhu () in Beijing. By the 1940s, she became one of the Seven Great Singing Stars.Baidu.Baidu" ''Bai Hong.'' Retrieved on 28 April 2007. Biography At age 1 ...

. In the 40s,

Bai Guang Bai Guang (27 June 1921 – 27 August 1999), also credited as Pai Kwong, Bai Kwong and Bai Kwang, was a Chinese actress and singer. By the 1940s, she became one of the Seven great singing stars. Biography Bai Guang was born Shi Yongfen () in 192 ...

, Li Xianglan (Yoshiko Yamaguchi), and

Wu Yingyin Wu Yingyin (born Wu Jianqiu ; 23 June 1922 – 17 December 2009), also romanized as Woo Ing-ing, was a Chinese singer. She came to prominence in the 1940s and became known as one of the seven great singing stars of the era. She continued to re ...

also became popular, and these seven were grouped as the seven great singing stars of the period. Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese starting from 1937 to 1945. Yoshiko, who was Japanese, came to prominence in this period although her Japanese ancestry was not revealed at that time. After the Communist victory in 1949, there began a large migration of people from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

also denounced Shanghai popular music as

Yellow Music Yellow Music is a genre of popular music. The term has been used in China and Vietnam to describe types of music that have separate origins. China Yellow Music () or Yellow Songs () was a label used to describe early generations of Chinese popu ...

(), a form of pornography, which effectively ended this period in Shanghai. The film and music industry had already begun to shift to Hong Kong in the '40s, and by the 1950s Hong Kong had become the centre of the entertainment industry. While some of the seven continued to perform for many years, Zhou Xuan died in 1957, Yoshiko retired from entertainment in 1958, and Bai Guang stopped recording in 1959.

The stars

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seven Great Singing Stars 20th-century births Chinese pop singers 7 Seven Great Singing Stars Lists of singers Republic of China singers Women in music Lists of women in music 20th-century Chinese women singers

Background

The stars

See also

References