Singapore's first blues band: The Straydogs in 1968. (Photo: D. Lim)
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The History
During the early 1960s, when British cultural (and political) influences were still locked on Singapore, blue-eyed R&B filtered into the country via records by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the Yardbirds. The door was jerked open wider thanks to English and American troops who were stationed in Singapore; these soldiers formed some of the first R&B bands to perform locally, and they mentored aspiring Singaporean rock 'n' rollers by lending them blues and soul records that hadn't yet reached the regional market. It runs opposite to how Brownie McGhee told the story, but in Singapore the blues wasn't born until it spun off from rock 'n' roll. The Straydogs, founded in 1966, are generally recognized as one of first Singaporean blues bands. The group recorded three singles (which show a strong Stones influence) and groomed three of Singapore's top blues talents: harp player Ronnie Kriekenbeek, guitarist Jimmy Appudurai-Chua, and guitarist Lim Thian Soon. Lim (who joined the Dogs in 1969) had previously been a member of the Pests Infested, a rival blues outfit fronted by harp and bass player Ernie Koh. Both the Pests and the Straydogs played "tea-dance" gigs at the Golden Venus lounge in the late sixties. Another standout from the Venus era was R&B singer Siva Choy, who still performs sporadic (but always house rockin') gigs today at the Crazy Elephant on Clarke Quay. The sixties basically breeded Singapura Blue; it was a niche movement, but it thrived in whatever gigs the musicians could score. In 1973, the Singaporean government shut down a handful of popular nightclubs (and imposed a curfew and a "dry" restriction on the rest) in an anti-drugs campaign. The clampdown on music venues lasted through the mid-seventies, and the bands took a major hit. For the blues scene, it was nothing short of disaster since most of the the bands that played blues also played heavy rock and Woodstock-era material, which had now fallen completely out of favor with the club owners. Alamak, enter the bleak disco era . . . . . . And then fast forward to the late 1980s, when the Asian Tiger economy started to get cocky. Singaporean rock made a comeback, and, low and behold, blues jams were cropping up at Marina Village, the Woodstock club in Far East Plaza (where Canned Heat's Harvey Mandel showed up on a whim), and the Down Under in the basement of the Meridien Hotel. These joints have all since shut down, but in their short lifespans they generated some needed momentum for a viable blues/rock scene. In December 1994, the owners of Woodstock took their business to Clarke Quay and opened the Crazy Elephant, a rock 'n' roll haven that remains very partial to the blues business. The Elephant sponsored the first Singapore Blues Festival in 1996, and it has since hosted shows by Walter Trout, Rick Derringer, and Eric Burdon, among others. New blues joints followed in the Elephant's wake, including the Roomful of Blues Café (founded by former Calcutta Blues Experiment guitarist Stephen Low) and Bernie Goes To Town, which ushered in piano legend Johnnie Johnson for back-to-back shows in February 2000. (Unfortunately, Bernie's went out of business as the millenium came to an end.) The local bands that play these venues still tend to be more rock-oriented, but every now and then you'll find Jay Shotam rapping out "Memphis Soul Stew" or Siva Choy ripping it up on Willie Dixon's "I Ain't Superstitious." Over the past decade, Singapore has seen concert or club gigs by the likes of B.B. King, Ray Charles, John Mayall, Buddy Guy, Guitar Shorty, Robben Ford, Canned Heat, Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges, and Dave Hole. In terms of homegrown musicians, the progress has been slow but not without a few gratifying moments, such as the emergence of the Universal Blues Band and the recent establishment of the Kolam Ayer Blues Club. Stay tuned, as there's surely more to come.
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