Dick Lee returns to his roots: "Before the Mad Chinaman, I was just Dick Lee"
"But you know, before I was the Mad Chinaman, I was a singer-songwriter playing ballads on the piano.
"Before the Mad Chinaman, I was just Dick Lee," said Singapore music legend Dick Lee in an interview with channelnewsasia.com, as he lounged comfortably in a
designer sofa at his converted-shophouse home.
Lee said he wanted to reintroduce himself to a new generation of "people who only know me as a judge on 'Singapore Idol'" and allow fans who only remember him from his "Mad Chinaman" days to learn what he is really like as a musician.
And to do that, he will be holding a series of recitals at the Esplanade Recital Hall from May 24, entitled "The Adventures of the Mad Chinaman" that traces his musical journey from the time he started playing the piano when he was seven till he released his hit album "Mad Chinaman" in 1989.
"It will be intimate, just me speaking to the audience and playing songs that have inspired me," said Lee, his voice echoing in the warmly lit, high-ceilinged hall, with walls adorned with all sorts of different artworks.
"There will be old songs that you would never have heard before; I am going to chronicle my life as a composer, especially songs from my teenage days."
Lee added that he will share with the audience everything that happened in his life during those days, even the embarrassing bits.
"I will be playing long lost footage of my television appearances [like those] in the 80s, it will be quite funny, entertaining. The 80s was all big hair and big shoulders!" Lee said with a laugh.
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But why is the master of flashy pop productions like the musical "Fried Rice Paradise" holding a small scale 'lecture-recital', instead of staging a massive production like his sold-out 2004 performance at the Kallang Theatre?
The 54-year-old musician explained that doing a small scale performance just felt more natural to him than a big concert.
"That was a big bells and whistles thing in the Kallang Theatre, with backing singers, guest artistes and all of that. That was to mark my 30th anniversary in showbiz.
"I actually want to just sit at the piano [and sing]. That's really where I am most comfortable, not in front of a band, in a costume which was what the 2004 concert was [like]," Lee confided, adding that his upcoming recitals were very significant to him because it also marks a turning point in his career.
Lee said he now wants to break away from doing just pop songs and rediscover how to write good music for himself, to go back to being himself and performing for people with just his voice and his piano.
"It's about time! I seem to have moved so far from what I was, gone on such a different trajectory," said Lee, explaining that it was a 'homecoming' of sorts.
"What happened with the 'Mad Chinaman' release was it launched my music career as a full time professional musician.
"Prior to that, I was doing my bits and pieces, had an event company, [released] albums on the side, you know. It was a kind of a nice, simple innocent life.
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