Discovery of Korean singer’s U.S. album from 1956 rewrites hallyu history

The oldest extant music album released in the U.S. by a Korean artist was discovered last week, redefining the history of Korean music outside the country.

Lee Joon-hee, a visiting professor at Sungkonghoe University, who specializes in pop music, told The Korea Herald on Friday that he has found Korean singer Ok Doo-ok’s U.S. debut LP record released in 1956. Even in absence of a written record or other evidence, “Ok was widely assumed to have been the first Korean singer to debut in the U.S. As we’ve now found the original LP online, it has become clear that hallyu history goes back to 1956,” he said.

The vinyl record Lee found on an online used record store has two tracks ― “East of Make Believe (Dong Chok Na Ra)” and “Kanda Kanda” ― under Ok’s English name Moon Kim, a name which is thought to be based on her real name, Kim Moon-chan. 

“East of Make Believe” is Kim’s English remake of Korean singer Hyeon In’s “Gohyangmanri,” which roughly translates to “Miles Away from Home.” “Kanda Kanda” is the English remake of “Yeokmacha” originally sung by female artist Jang Se-jung.

“English lyrics for both tracks were written by lyricist Fred Jay, the album shows. There was a famous lyricist of the same name during that period but we weren’t able to find evidence that the two are the same person,” Lee explained, adding that a complete version of the English lyrics will be revealed later.

If Lee’s assumption is right, the Korean songstress was working with a renowned lyricist who also wrote for Jerry Butler and Sarah Vaughan.

Ok was accompanied by the Joe Reisman’s Orchestra on the album issued by RCA Victor, a well-known record label established in 1929, which issued numerous popular albums in the 1950s and ’60s.

Ok was a popular singer in Korea during the 1940s, known for her sensual, entrancing voice that wove sorrow into music. However, she dropped out of the music scene in Korea in the 1950s upon moving to the U.S. with her husband, a second-generation Korean-American.

Yet, it appears that the singer continued to sing in the U.S. in English, releasing another album under the RCA Victor label in 1959, two years after her first U.S. album.

“I’m Dingy Dongy Over You” and “Oriental Hop” were also recorded with accompaniment by Joe Reisman’s Orchestra And Chorus. Notably, Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance, a duo responsible for Perry Como’s Grammy-nominated “Catch a Falling Star” recorded in 1957, cowrote “Oriental Hop.” The fact that noted composers wrote her next song and that the second album followed soon after the debut album shows that Kim’s performance in the U.S. was not a one-time event, Lee noted.

Prior to the revelation of the existence of Ok’s U.S. album, Kim Sisters, a well-known female trio of the time, were on record as the first local musicians to break into the U.S. music scene in 1959, performing at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas and subsequently appearing on the “Ed Sullivan Show.”

After decades of being out of the limelight, Ok appeared on a local television show in the 1980s, but her whereabouts today are unknown.

By Suk Gee-hyun (monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)