Wednesday Songs
July 19, 2017
I honestly don't know where to begin a story about Jose Mari
Chan. My all-time favorite OPM song of all time is "Constant Change."
My favorite Christmas song of all time is "A Perfect Christmas." My
favorite remake of all time is his "Perhaps Love"
I will never forget the time I was
singing "Thank You, Love" to someone whom I had once loved more than
life itself. I chose Christmas In Our
Hearts when somebody once asked me to name an album I'd want to have if
I'm stranded on an island. The other item on my list: the Avengers' Quinjet so
I can go back home.
My personal soundtrack has featured
"Tell Me Your Name" and "Can We Just Stop and Talk Awhile"
at different times in my life. Even my
LSS (last song syndrome) right now is from Jose Mari Chan – "The Sound Of
Life"
"Can you hear the laughter,
can you hear the music,
sing with your heart,
it's the song of life!
Can you hear it, can you feel it,
it's the magic in your heart,
it's the music, the sound of life...!"
I just watched an interview with Jo
Mari Chan at BizNews with Tony Lopez. He was very articulate and charming and
spontaneous and natural.
I first heard him in a interview in
the DzMM show Music and Memories with Boots Anson and Willie
Nepomuceno some years back. I was, and still am, very impressed. It is so
obvious that there is a decent man and a beautiful soul behind the musical
genius.
Jo Mari Chan vividly remembers his
very first public performance. One of the most popular shows back then was
"Children Hour," a radio program where kids can act or read poems.
He went there and sang
"Granada." The audience was stunned and
impressed – and he was only nine years old.
When he turned thirteen, he was
already a pro in the big leagues. Jo Mari was the host of his own radio show,
Junior Morning Chipper, or JMC (as in Jose Mari Chan) for short.
His natural sense of music began to
fully develop during his high school years at St. Clement's in Iloilo. The
teachers were Irish priests who introduced him to John Keats and Percy Byshe
Shelley and some of the other great masters of poetry.
“It was there where I got into
dramatics and learned to speak English well," he says in an interview with
Elizabeth Lolarga which I stumbled upon online. "The teachers helped give
me an ear for rhyme and meter. I’ve always been a melody man.”
His teen years were during the
colorful hippie and psychedelic era, but Jo Mari remained wholesome and squeaky
clean, the type of boy that any girl would want her parents to meet.
With a career in music on his
horizon, yet with an uncanny entrepreneurial brilliance he inherited from his
father whom he idolized, Jo Mari graduated from the Ateneo De Manila University
with a degree in Economics.
Jo Mari had also already conquered
television during that time. He was one the hosts of the popular "9
Teeners" along with Ces Onrubia, Roman Azanza, Tito Osias and Johnny
Salientes.
He shared his first original compositions
on TV which led him to independent producers who helped create the 45-rpm
record of "Afterglow" which made him a growing national sensation.
The young and superbly talented
chinito looker was just irresistible with his effortless charm and the smooth
velvety voice. The giant Dyna record label came to him and produced his first
12-song LP of his own compositions.
The first single is “Deep in My
Heart" – and a star is born.
Jose Mari Chan's made musical
history over and over again in his charmed career and magical music. The two
biggest selling Philippine album of all time is his Constant Change and Christmas In Our Hearts, each full of songs that have become part of
the lives of millions including mine.
The music of Jo Mari Chan is the
soundtrack of all generations. His "Beautiful Girl" is such a monster
hit that it became a movie with Gretchen Barretto, Romnick Sarmenta and Raul
Zaragosa in 1990, directed by Laurice Guillen and also featuring another of his
classic, "Can We Start Over Again."
His "Please Be Careful With My
Heart," a timeless duet with Regine Velasquez that is now the wedding
anthem of so many happily married couples, has inspired the successful 2012 TV
series "Be Careful With My Heart" with Jodi Sta. Maria and Richard
Yap on ABS-CBN
The most anticipated scene is the
wedding of "Maya" and "Sir Chief." The surprise guest is
none other than the living legend himself. Jo Mari serenaded the audience and
the millions of viewers, making everybody fall in love all over again.
This year, 2017, the music of Jose
Mari Chan has once again has inspired another hit ABS-CBN series, "A Love
To Last," with Ian Veneracion and Bea Alonzo, that has become a television
phenomenon, setting a new record in prime time.
His other classics have also been
sung by Ian and Bea on the show, such as "Refrain" and "Afraid
For Love To Fade" and of course, the title track, which have all became
big radio hits.
The title was inspired by his
"A Love To Last A Lifetime," which he has written for his beloved
wife Mary Ann. They were married in 1970 and still going even stronger as the
years passed, proving that "Forever" is real.
They have five children, all
successful in their own fields. His daughter Liza is the little girl singing "Let's
sing Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday..." in their timeless duet
"Christmas In Our Hearts."
When Lisa grew up, she again gave
her beautiful voice to another duet with her legendary father their own version
of "Perhaps Love." As much as I love John Denver, what they created
is one of preciously rare gems that is
even more beautiful than the original.
The music of Jose Mari Chan is just
world class. He has performed around the world, even at the Carnegie Hall. The
Grammy winning jazz group Manhattan Transfer produced the album "The
Manhattan Connection" featuring his songs.
This humble piece is only a small
glimpse of his unequaled achievements and his rightful place in in history. I
can go and go on saying how much Jose Mari Chan means to me, but he already
sang what I want to say to him:
"Thank you for the smile
that never fails to brighten my day,
for the tender look when you gaze at me with eyes that warm
my heart,
for the music of your laughter,
touch that makes my pulse go faster,
thanks for all the memories of a lifetime..."
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