Tam Pak Yip (1908 – 10 May 1983), a native of Kaiping in Guangdong, chaired the Hong Kong film producers' association and served as a standing council member of a Hong Kong music and Cantonese operatic arts association. Educated at Pui Ching Middle School in Guangzhou, he was active in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong and devoted most of his life to organising record recordings, handling a great quantity of Cantonese opera, operatic song and Guangdong instrumental music, while also appearing in films and singing Cantonese operatic numbers on stage. He took part in the Canton–Hong Kong general strike of the mid-1920s. After the Mukden Incident he oversaw the recording of dozens of patriotic records, including the celebrated exile trilogy beginning with a song of the Songhua River, issued to support resistance propaganda; his duet with Kwan Ying-lin of The Battle of Taierzhuang and other such recordings are today important material for the study of wartime Cantonese opera. The 1920s and 1930s were a flourishing period for Cantonese opera records, and Tam both planned the selection of songs and organised musicians and singers for recordings and performed himself, giving him close ties with Cantonese opera troupes and record merchants in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. His command of Cantonese operatic singing was such that leading performers, among them Chin Siu-lei, Fung Wong-nui, Wong Kam-oi, Wong Chiu-mo, So Siu-tong and Ho King-fan, came to study with him. Moving between the two cities for much of his life, he left dozens of records and a large body of Cantonese opera recordings, which bear witness to the record industry of his day and preserve the sound of Cantonese opera and operatic song from before and after the war. In 1983, taken ill while returning to Guangzhou from Hong Kong, he was admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen Medical College and died in the early hours of 10 May 1983, aged 75. More than 250 people attended a memorial service at the Guangzhou funeral parlour on 16 May.
Handling a great volume of Cantonese opera, operatic song and Guangdong instrumental recordings, and issuing patriotic records after the Mukden Incident to support resistance propaganda, Tam preserved a valuable body of pre- and post-war sound recordings on both sides of the border, and many leading Cantonese opera singers studied singing under him.
Achievements
- 1925 · Took part in the Canton–Hong Kong general strike
- 1931 · After the Mukden Incident oversaw the recording of patriotic records including the exile trilogy beginning with a song of the Songhua River
- 1938 · Recorded anti-Japanese records such as The Battle of Taierzhuang during the war, alongside a large output of Cantonese opera and operatic song records