Amerasian Singers on Pinterest

We cordially invite you to check out and follow our board on Pinterest, entitled Amerasian Singers. Up next will be our Facebook page.  Thank you for your viewership.  We really appreciate the mail we've been receiving.  On one letter, someone said that our website gave him a sense of pride.  That meant a lot.  This was the reason why I set up this site in the first place.

Thanh Ha on Amerasian Singers

Dai Trang: Dancing All Night and Always Moving Forward

For as long as I've known Dai Trang, I've always been tremendously impressed with her drive and motivation.  She has always been a go-getter.  Nothing ever seems to hold her back from getting what she wants in life and achieving the goals she has set out for herself.  Dai Trang truly is an over-achiever who has set a perfect example for others to see what hard work and determination can bring in life. 

My friendship with Dai Trang started sometime in the year of 1994.  It had been just a few years since her arrival to the United States from Vietnam, yet she had already established herself as a household name with overseas Vietnamese audiences worldwide and was enjoying a highly successful singing career with a full schedule.  When she wasn't touring out of town, she was performing regularly at the Ritz Nightclub in Anaheim, California.  During this time, Dai Trang was also riding high with her professional association with May Productions as a regular performer on the Hollywood Night stage. With each appearance that Dai Trang was making on the Hollywood Night music video series, audiences were being mesmerized by her exotic Eurasian beauty, her charm and unique style of singing.  Among the songs Dai Trang had performed on Hollywood Night included Red Hot, Tokyo by Night, Venus, Jump in My Car, and the most memorable of them all, Dancing All Night.  That was also the song that had turned me into a Dai Trang fan.  On one volume of the Hollywood Night series, it was revealed how she had gained quite a following among admiring viewers who had taken notice of her physical beauty, as Dai Trang was deemed as the Vietnamese singer who had possessed the most attractive set of legs.

Dai Trang on the popular
Hollywood Night music video series

When I first met Dai Trang, I was a bit nervous.  Our first meeting was sometime near the end of the year in 1994.  It was at her apartment somewhere in Garden Grove.  I had driven my good friend, singer Jenny Trang, over to Dai Trang's house, as the two had planned to meet up for lunch.  When I arrived, my intitial intentions were to just drop off Jenny and come back later on to pick her up once she was done with her visit.  But as I pulled up to the entrance of the apartment building, I was met with Dai Trang while she was waiting for us and was overtaken by her charm.  I just could not refuse Dai Trang's insistence that I come up to join them for lunch.  She was just so sweet and sincere that I just could not back out.  From that moment on, Dai Trang and I have grown to be more than just friends and colleagues, but our very special friendship which entails a strong love that has developed between us has become as close as that of actual siblings.


Dai Trang has been one of my true rocks throughout my years working in the singing business.  She has always been there to give me support and encouragement whenever needed in this often frustrating line of work.  One of the ways she has exemplified her duties of a benevolent big sister to me is how she has set an example of herself in order to teach me the ropes of attaining success and building for myself a sense of confidence.  Like I said, nothing ever gets Dai Trang down.  Her determination has been the driving force behind her success.

In the years that I've known Dai Trang, she has managed to have a successful singing career as well as a successful career as a businesswoman.  After many years in the spotlight, she decided to start a family as she is now mother to a son and wife to a wonderful man, Chau, an Oriental herbalist.  Since then she has gone back to school and earned herself an MBA Degree from UC Irvine in business marketing.   Together with her husband, the two have run a successful business, Phuc An Duong, a distribution firm of high quality Oriental herbs , and own a patent for Bach Lien Tra, a natural herbal tea product in which Dai Trang endorses on her self-produced Vietnamese language radio and television programs.  At one time, she also was part-owner of a Vietnamese television station.  Dai Trang still appears on video frequently for Blue Ocean Productions and performs every now and then at live shows all over the world.  Like I've often said about Dai Trang, she always seems to be running while the rest of us walk.

Link(s):

Bach Lien Tra Website
DaiTrangSinger.BlogSpot.com

Lilian

While Thanh Ha and Phi Nhung were still in Vietnam back in the 1980s, Lilian was already doing her own thing here in the States, wowing audiences with her incredible voice at her live performances. The first time I ever saw Lilian perform on stage was way back in 1987 at a Vietnamese nightclub in in Orange County called Club Rex.  I was only about 14 at the time, and somehow was snuck in by my older cousins through a back entrance.  Once I got in and was able to see the line-up of live musical performers, I was completely impressed by one singer in particular, Lilian.  I just couldn't get over just how much energy Lilian had as a live performer.  It was during the time when Euro New Wave and Italo Disco music was really popular.  Lilian sang songs like You're My Love, You're My Life, Heartflash Tonight, Heaven and Hell, and Say You'll Never perfectly, some she sang even better than the original artists.  She definitely stood out from the rest of the Vietnamese performers for several reasons like her high energy style of performing, her gestures and dance moves that were typical of a Westerner unlike most other Vietnamese singers at the time, and the most obvious distinguishing factor about Lilian, how she didn't look at all Vietnamese due to her mixed background as an Amerasian.

After that first night seeing Lilian perform live at Club Rex, I searched everywhere hoping to buy Lilian's cassettes without much luck.  Some of the Vietnamese music stores I went to didn't even know who she was.  Finally, I think it was either at Bich Thu Van in Phuoc Loc Tho (Asian Garden Mall) or at Tu Quynh on Bolsa and Brookhurst in Westminster where I found a few compilation cassettes consisting of various other Vietnamese recording artists that had featured Lilian with only a song or two.  The quality in the production of these cassettes were pretty much forgettable.  I remember two tracks Lilian had recorded in particular that I had found to be really enjoyable to listen to; a cover she had done of CC Catch's Heaven and Hell, which was a track where Lilian had made a guest appearance on an album of a French-Vietnamese singer named Yen Huong, and another Euro New Wave cover of CC Catch's that she recorded with the worst title imaginable, You Shot a Whole in My Soul.  I was already hooked on Lilian from that first time I saw her perform live.  I just couldn't wait for her to come out with more recorded songs, preferably an album of her own, one of these days.

In 1993, my good friend, hairstylist and make-up artist, Perry Zeild, invited me to accompany him and singer Kieu Nga at a shooting of a music video production at the Ritz Nightclub in Anaheim. When I walked in, I saw this beautiful tall girl.  I asked Perry if that was a singer that used to sing at Club Rex by the name of Lilian.  Perry said yes.  I couldn't believe it.  It had been years since I had been to any Vietnamese nightclub and I hadn't heard or seen anything of Lilian's out in the market. That was when I found out through Perry that Lilian had been performing regularly at the Ritz all these years after Club Rex had closed down.  I remember asking Perry if he knew whether Lilian was Amerasian or not.  He gave me a puzzled look while he shook his head and said, "I can't believe you of all people can't tell that she's a halfie."  By the way, that was when Lilian shot the music video to Finally for Shotguns Productions.

Lilian would be formally introduced to the Vietnamese general audience the following year when she signed with Sao Dem Productions that would produce many of her solo studio albums throughout the 1990s.  I then started going to Ritz quite often just to watch Lilian perform.  I really loved watching her, especially whenever she would sing What's Up?  It wouldn't be for another couple of years when I finally got to know her through a mutual friend, singer Cathy Dung.  And then another few more years before I would get to work with her on several shows, as well as singing alongside her on a few occasions at the Can Club and the Majestic.  All I can say about Lilian is she is just one awesome person.  We've known each other now for nearly 20 years, and I've never once had a disagreement with her.  That's really saying something for anyone who has known me for that long.  Lilian has been like a big sister to me.  I'm not sure if she is 5 or 6 years older than myself.  But what does it matter?  She still looks great after all these years.  I truly cherish our friendship.  And I hope that we will be able to work together again in the near future.  Lilian is just the best!