Only occasionally folk rock in Korea was made by a rock musician. This musician was Shin Jung-Hyun. I think there was no another musician like him in Korea. He made three psychedelic folk rock albums with folk singers. First one is Kim Jung-Mi's "Now"(1973) and Seo Yoo-Seok's "Shin Jung-Hyun Jakpeangok jip"(Shin Jun-Hyun songs collection, 1973) and Yang Hee-Eun's "Shin Jung-Hyun Jakpeangok jip"(1973). I think that he was interested about adding psychedelic music to folk music by the year 1973. Both albums (Seo Yu-seok and Yang Hee-Eun) were made only sides A by Shin Jung-Hyun. Sides B were composed by other composers. These records were a new experiment for the Korean Folk history.
This singer has a beautiful, only slightly breathy voice, with folk-psych and pop-psych group accompaniment. This is considered as her best work. Her voice style is pretty much like English pop-psych. The accompaniment varies a bit, is made for perfection, and is perfectly fitting for a song oriented record. A very beautiful record. It was a bit more difficult to pick out tracks, because they all sound good. The more I listen to the album, the more I like it even better.
"Musical performance by Yupjeons. Korean psychedelic folk Masterpiece and her
best record!! This record was reissued LP and CD format in 2003, but it is sold
out now. She was made into a psychedelic singer by Shin Jung Hyun. Her vocal
resemble the Grace slick of Jefferson Airplane was erotic that is a very sexy ?
It is a mega rare Korean psychedelic folk or beat rock album. It also so rare
because of Korea's president's "purge measure of Korean pop music" In 1970th her
record was fired by government employees. You'll see her record listed at the
Record Collector Dreams book by Hans Pokora" Folkie Jin
Eclipse Records description : Legendary groovy acid femme psychedelic folk rock masterpiece, finally sees reissue in a deluxe mini-LP sleeve from Korea; super acid rock produced by famous Korean fuzz guitar maven Shin Jung Hyun, with the playing of Hyun and his band The Men evident throughout; sustains a spacey west coast style of psychedelia throughout; one song from this album featured on the ‘Peace, Love and Dreams’ series; if Francoise Hardy is the Marianne Faithful of France, then Kim Jung Mi is, I suppose, the Francoise Hardy of Korea...
* Prince Rec.Shin Jung Hyun & Cambo Band : Sound (vol 1) (KO,1971)*°
Tr.16, "Tomorrow" 4 min 9 -?
Here the band is accompanying kind of 60's psych-pop songs, sung by female duo.
It is an instrumental with some fine electric guitar and organ improvisation. Personally the mainstream female 60's pop songs themselves appeal less to me. I
still preferred to take out the one ballad, with vocals by Lee Jung Hwa.
"Guest female singers are Min A, Bonnie Girls, Ju Hyun. He started his "Shin Jung-Hyun and his Cambo band" summer 1971. He recorded this record with some guest female singers. These are (the) Bonnie girls, a female duo : Ju Hyun, Min A, who were famous Korean pop group in the 70's. (At first they had debuted with
Shin Jung Hyun). Musical features of this album are very psychedelic with some unique Koreanized female garage songs. Especially Side A3 "UjuYeHang" (a space trip) is a great psychedelic female song and has unique guitar melody with echoed sounds. Side A has two songs by Min A, two songs by Bonnie girls, one instrument song by Shin Jung hyun and his Cambo band. and Side B has five songs by Ju Hyun. I think that this record is a great Korean female psychedelic record!!! Highly recommended!" Folkie Jin
* Prince Rec.Shin Jung Hyun & Golden Grapes: Sound vol 2 (KO,1971)**°
Tr.1, "It's not man" 4 min
Tr.4, "Lonely Heart" 5 min
Tr.9, "Oh My Lover" 3 min 12 -64
The psych-pop songs are sung by quiet nice female voice.. This is accompanied
with backing vocals on first track, and with organ, electric bass, drums, and
here and there some electric guitar. Most songs are quite simple pop songs.
"Musical performance by Golden Grapes with Shin Jung Hyun Lead guitar. Guest female singer are Kim Jung Mi,and Ju Hyun, Min A,as the Bonnie Girls". Kim Jung Mi debut record! Musical performance of this record by Golden Grapes, the group also
debuted with supports of shin Jung Hyun. All Group members were mixed blood and
orphan guys. So Shin Jung Hyun wanted to help them. He often played with them and also he gave to play stages for them, too, and he played at this record with
Golden Grapes. In this record also he worked with some guest female singers. These are Kim Jung Mi, Ju Hyun, Bonnie Girls, Min A. All Side A songs by Kim Jung-Mi and four songs are same to Kim Jung Mi second album but one song is a different. Side B songs are three songs by Ju Hyun, one song by Min A and Bonnie
girls. Side B songs also included to Shin Jung-Hyun sound vol. 1 album, but the
musical performance is different. The reason is that Musical performance of this
record is by Golden Grapes, while on Shin Jung-Hyun sound vol. 1 album it was by
Shin Jung-Hyun and his Cambo band. All songs are nice Koreanized psychedelic sounds and you can understand that his great musical composition ability at this
album." Folkie Jin
* Prince Rec.Shin Jung Hyun & Golden Grapes: Sound vol 3 (KO,1972)***°'
Tr.2, "Thinking heart" 3 min
Tr.3, "Why you are.." 4 min
Tr.4, "Please don't afflict me" 4 min
Tr.6, "Instrumental" 15 min 26 -47 (click for audio file)
Some late 60's psychpop with nice organ (at times Iron Butterfly-like to give some idea), male voice(s) with Beatlesque harmonic singing and psychrock drive, and some early 70's psychedelic rock. I especially like the fourth track : heavy rock with organ, harmonic vocals, electric guitars improvisation,.. Last bluespsych track lasts for 15 minutes. The album starts very, very slowly, with a blues-psych guitar solo and a the psych organ waiting to participate. It takes an almost 8 minutes before the musical rhythm changes, into a funkier mode, which is moulded into a psych repetition too, with some electric guitar, until, I count now 9 minutes, the organ makes it to a (really great) solo too. When the drum starts its solo the track is (sadly) faded out. Highly recommended album. Perhaps one of the best psychedelic rock albums from Korea.
"-Golden grapes debut album/Enjoy the psychedelic party or trip. Ultra Mega rare! This album is a great and masterpiece of Korean dark psychedelic rock music!!!! You can listen to very rhythmical and powerful psychedelic sounds at this album much more than on any other Korean psychedelic record. The colours of
psychedelic sounds are very deep and dark also the feeling is damply and heavy.
In shortly is this a bad trip! ? I think that this is a Korean representative psychedelic record and his forgotten masterpiece!! So you might have a big headache when the trip ended as with smoking marijuana!!! This is really dark and powerful, also hallucinating psychedelia !!!!" Folkie Jin
The debut of Coins I airplayed in first radioshow. This album is musically much
more interesting. "The Fairy" is a very slowly starting beautiful psych ballad
with sweet vocals. Some psychedelic elements also slowly come in, and near the middle taking the track over, with an almost over-droning and repetitive bass and electric guitars improvisation with voice screams on the background. (I guess a slightly different mix could still improve the track, but in this form
it doesn't miss its psychedelic effect either). The repetitive bass and improvisation is stretched to an unusual, perhaps almost unnecessary length (in
this mix). It has some great wa-wa guitar passages and the already mentioned voice screams. "I saw you..." has a psych-rock improvisational playing with some psych effects on the electric guitar and some distortion effects on the voice ? I really like the singing too. It also experiments a bit in improvisation. Also "In the Rain" has this kind of psych-blues repetition drive influence, with electric guitar and some voice drive improvisation (early Jimmy Hendrix came from the same musical area of early inspiration).
Very good, fine psych-rock/hard rock album, with here and there some blues-rock
elements. Last track on the album is a blues-rock improvisation, with some dirty fuzz touches. Very unique is also the combination of original Korean music with western elements. On first track this can be described as Korean music with some Hendrix influence or so.
" First version of this record (Shin Jung Hyun & Coins) was reissued only CD format in 2003. But there are dubbed guitar sounds on the reissue of the CD. It is a Korean psychedelic rock masterpiece!! Only this album released about 500 copies only with a paper sleeve gate fold cover ! ! First pressing has not the A5 and B5 song, but only it just appeared the songs on the cover track list. Members are Shin Jung-Hyun(Guitar and Vocal), Lee Nam-Lee (Bass), Kim Ho-Sik(Drums). It is a different Musical performance and Drummer compared to the second pressing. First pressings were only given to a broadcasting station. So it was a very rare and expensive these days.
The first pressing is in fact the best combination of styles (of Western rock
music combined with Korean traditional rhythms) of all his records. It is a great eastern pyschedelia!! Only I just can say that "He almost completed his
hope (to combine Western music with Korean traditional rhythm) at this album."
Just you must feel it!! The CD reissue was published in 1994."
"Second pressing (Shin Jung Hyun & Yup Juns) members are Shin Jung-Hyun(Guitar and Vocal), Lee Nam-I (Bass), Kwan Young-Nam (Drums). It is a different Musical performance and Drummer compared to the second pressing. This album is a Hard rock style of first pressings. But B5 is a great psychedelic instrumental song!!" In general it had hard rock styled musical performances. The reason is that record company wants popular rock sounds, and while the first pressing is not, they wanted to record it again. That's how Shin Jung Hyun had to record it again. This second pressing is not so rare and low price (on CD)." Folkie Jin
I told already before, in the first radioshow, that Park Jung-Hee (the President of South Korea from at these days a military regime was the president of a dictatorial government) commanded Shin Jung-Hyun to make the Blue House (which is the Korean presidential residence) praising song but he rejected to do so and made the song "Beautiful rivers and mountains" instead, that praised the beautiful nature of Korea. He was sentenced to prison under the suspicion of drug abuse (Marijuana) in December 1975. He had taken Marijuana only once in former days with some hippies only. The real reason for his imprisonment was not the drug abuse, but the refusal of Park Jung-Hee's command. He couldn't act more musical activities but still published his records until the 80's, until he died. After all, his best days were ended by people like Park Jung-Hee.
Here Shin Jung Hyun & Donkeys were backing band for a basically mainstream song
oriented release. Still, the psych elements are all there (electric guitars, organ,..), especially in some tracks. The first chosen song ("Petal" possibly means "marijunana") has some orchestration arrangement too. Last 16 minute track is similar and is the complete B-side of the album. Of course here's more room for band improvisation. This means a melodic repetition (drum, electric guitar, bass, organ) with on top a really great electric guitar improvisation on the musical theme (with some wa-wa effects too) by Shin Jung Hyun, followed by a psych organ improvisation (somewhat Iron Butterfly like), a bass solo, and small piece of a rather simple (let's say a garage-like version) of a drum solo. Great!
This albums has two versions (First pressing and Second pressing).
This is the second pressing. It contain the same songs but with different
recordings. First pressing is more primitive and live gem style but second
pressing is more psychedelic pop style of late 1960s.
* SRBShin Joong Hyun (with The Three Travellers) (KO,197?)****°
Tr.1, "Now we go to the World" 4 min
Tr.4, "The Sea" 5 min
Tr.5, "Enjoy Life" 4 min
Tr.6, "The streets of Kwang Bok Dong" 5 min
Tr.8, "A Stream" 7 min 23 -150
This first track is dirty hardrock-styled with a garage/punk-like straightness, and some additional heavy fuzz-guitar solo elements. In general it continues in this raw (hard) rock style. In some way it has also a very 'eastern' vibe of hard rock. Perhaps also some traditionals or at least something of Korean styles and melodies (especially on track 5) were transformed into this hard rock style? I find it very enjoyable and very original this way. The 6th track has some intro bass/ guitars chords I recognise from Black Sabbath, but perhaps this is completely coincidental. It has convincing emotional vocals too. Last track has more complex electric guitar parts mixed with heavy bluesrock elements).
Recommended album. Amongst my favourite Korean albums so far.
About Shin Joong Hyun : "My Job is to Make Rock Music in Korean Style"
A clock hangs upside down on the wall of the underground studio where Shin Joong-hyun writes and plays music. It is a world where he wishes time ran backward so that he could make music for another lifetime. Often dubbed the godfather of Korean rock 'n' roll, Shin says his job is combining rock and traditional Korean music in a way that can be shared by everyone in the world - a job that may not be completed in his lifetime. But he took a giant step in this direction when he released an album in February this year. It is titled after Kim Sat-Kat, a 19th century itinerant poet famous for wearing a conical hat made of roughly woven reed which covered his entire face. Shin wrote and sang all of the 19 songs on the album. The song lyrics are Kim's poems which were originally written in Chinese and have been translated into Korean by Shin. The songs have the rhythm of rock music rendered in the five-note scale of the traditional Korean music. Shin, who also plays guitar capable of producing sounds similar to those made by Korean musical instruments specially built.
"We should create our own music and culture," he said.
"To me, the job is to make rock music in a Korean style. I hope my album will promote our culture in other countries."
The album came more than two decades after he was inspired by the poet who wandered around Korea, writing poems, many of them satirical.
Until the mid-1970s, he wrote hit songs and trained singers like Kim Chu-ja, Chang Hyun and the Pearl Sisters who rose to stardom with his songs. But his musical career plunged into the abyss when he refused to write a song praising President Park Chung Hee, who took power in a 1961 military coup. He was subsequently placed on a surveillance list. Police officers harassed him, questioned him about what kind of music he was writing and playing, prevented him from holding live concerts and even cut his long hair short. He was constantly trailed by plain clothes policeman. At that time, he began to identify with the poet Kim, whose family was persecuted after his grandfather, a county chief, surrendered to rebels in 1811. Disillusioned with the sociopolitical system of the Choson Dynasty, which did not permit members of such disgraced families to hold govern-mental posts, Kim left home at the age of 20 or so and wandered around Korea writing cynical and sarcastic poems about the corruption of government officials, human greediness, the capriciousness of the wealthy and other social ills. The 60-year-old Shin said in a recent interview with Herald Week that he was fascinated by Kim's poems because they were short, simple, with and satirical. Unlike most poems which do not translate smoothly into song, lyrics, he said, Kim's poems became livelier when they were combined with music.
"It was as if they were written to be made into songs," he said. Before writing music for the lyrics, Shin traveled to the places that the poet visited some 150 years before. He also visited the poet's grave. After the tour he felt inspired to write songs in honor of the poet. He said,"It felt like magic that I could sing and play Kim's poems." He said he believes rock's rhythm, the five-note Korean scale and the sound of traditional Korean musical instruments will appeal to the Korean sentiment when they are put together though they may not be a perfect match.
He is planning to hold concerts both in Korea and abroad to test the musical combination on Korean audience and then foreigners. "Korean music, which resembles natural sounds like wind, rain and thunder, mingles well with other musical genres (like rock)." he said.
Shin started his musical career when he played guitar at the U.S.army base in Seoul in the 1950's. He liked rock because it had a strong beat and contained elements of blues and country music. Rock'n'roll is all the more appealing to him because it began as a revolt against the establishment in the 1960's, he added.
On his 40th anniversary as a musician last year, Shin received a tribute album from young Korean rock musician, the first in Korean musical history. The young musicians, who included Shin's three sons, also held a concert in his honor. Shin said he hopes young Korean musicians will create their own music that has emotional depth and inner strength. "Our traditional music may sound too simple. But if you listen to it again and again, you will feel its depth," he said."We need to establish our own culture before jumping to adopt Western culture."
