NEWSFLASH

Special to the Philippine Headline News Online
by Alex Jimenez
Newsflash Entertainment Columnist

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JOE MARI CHAN'S 'SOUVENIRS' OF THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Joe Mari Chan is topping the music sales charts again. He's doing it not with new songs, but with old familiar tunes people long to hear over and over again.

Unlike in most revivals, the album avoids taking on a 90s twist. Joe Mari prefers to keep the arrangements simple -- no ornament to enhance them but the sincerity of his delivery and the softly throbbing hearts of his listeners. His album is simply called SOUVENIRS, the better to convey its message.

Joe Mari Chan has been a fixture in the Philippine music industry ever since his big hit AFTERGLOW made a splash on the airlanes and record bars at the dawn of the 70s. Together with the jukebox giants of that era -- Nora Aunor, Eddie Peregrina and Victor Wood -- he helped break down the stranglehold of American Top 40 hits.

Together, with their million selling hits, they helped build the fortunes that established Alpha Records of Buddy de Vera, Dyna Records of the Dy family and Vicor Records of Vic del Rosario and Orly Ilacad.

LPs sold for a mere 12 to 15 pesos, while 45 rpm singles went for only two pesos. At the time, the US dollar was the equivalent of four Philippine pesos.

For a while, it was thought that their reign would never end. Nora went on to record nearly forty albums, many of which became million sellers until the movies beckoned. Eddie was killed in a fatal car crash at the Shaw Boulevard-EDSA underpass. Victor found himself ostracized by a recording industry that smarted over his expose of the payola to disc jockeys so that foreign artists would get prime air play. Joe Mari went on to run ARCA sugar, staying mostly overseas to manage exports.

With the departure of these four giants, local tin pan alley was never quite the same.

For a while, there was Freddie Aguilar with his world-acclaimed ANAK followed by a brief, post-EDSA Revolution success with BAYAN KO. But artists who lorded it in the 80s never got the kind of following their predecessors in the 70s had. The new guys had more pizzazz and showmanship but their record sales were nowhere near as spectacular as in the boom days of the 70s.

Then came the 90s. Joe was back from the us with the monster hit BEAUTIFUL GIRL, followed by one hit after another. He even came up with many television specials and concerts and his very own Karaoke sing-along laser disc.

Victor Wood returned home and Nora began waxing new albums. But it was Joe Mari Chan who made the most consistently successful return to Manila's pop music industry, helping it hold its own against the dominance of American top 40 hits once more.

As the 90s closes, Joe Mari has another special album, a romantic one that re-awakens the memories of folks who fell in love with the ballads from the 30s to the 80s.

Joe is in his mid fifties. Just recently, he resumed a long running friendship with Jo San Diego, the sultry-voiced deejay of the most popular overnight radio program ALL NIGHT STAND of the 60s. She returned to Manila for a two-stint on DZRJ. Jo San Diego calls him her "resident musical genius" and he assisted her in rebuilding her collection of songs from the big band era, all the way to the rock-and-roll sixties. She probably had a hand in helping him select the tunes that would go into his latest album.

Joe Mari considers the selections in his albums evergreens. The seasons may come and go but these ballads retain the patina of countless memories of love and romance. Rightly, the album is titled SOUVENIRS. Not the kind you find covered with dust and cobwebs in some lost attic, but the sort treasured by hearts that have journeyed through the joys and pains of a life fully lived.

Joe knew that his album would not be complete without a selection from Frank Sinatra. But he was looking beyond the Frank Sinatra that had become the anthem of men asserting their macho attitude in MY WAY, or slobbering through their broken hearts in LET ME TRY AGAIN, or even fantasizing an evening with some anonymous date in STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT.

So he goes back to the dawn of Sinatra's career and picks the introspective LOOK TO YOUR HEART. Only `Ole Blue Eyes' fanatics are familiar with the song from among the hundreds he recorded. The song is an exercise in subtlety and restraint, a far cry from the Sinatra of the later years who became more famous for his tantrums and wild flings. It was the fundamental romantic in The Voice, plaintively searching for the truth in love.

How typical of Joe Mari, who is not known for vocal histrionics but for the soft yet heartfelt emotions that envelopes the hearts of his listeners like a warm comforter on a cold, windy night.

Joe Mari included another Sinatra standard for good measure, one that would thrill romance addicts no end is Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" which first warmed lovers during 1941 when the Second World War engulfed much of the civilized world. Mitchell Parish's lyrics about a June night in love's valley of dreams is bound to bring you slow-dancing to a dimly lit dance floor, arm-in-arm with the date of your dreams. Joe Mari's simple subtle delivery makes the song come alive once more, half a century after it was frozen in memories.

Apart from the oldies, though, Joe Mari included some from more recent decade, the most notable of which is the late John Denver's "Perhaps Love" and unforgettable sixties favorites "I Must be Dreaming" and "Seventh Dawn".

So dream on with Joe Mari, and weave the magic of your hearts souvenirs.