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Han Dae-soo, creator of folk music

Unlike many people who accept and endure their daily routines, some people have a free mind and soul, and are ready for change and challenge. They have the courage to undauntedly and confidently face struggles and great effort, enduring thirst and pain. Their lives full of courage will undoubtedly be tumultuous, but surely shine in the end.

Han Dae-soo (59) is one such figure. Han has been striving to discover the truth in human beings and the world through his life's journey, during which he has constantly transformed and developed himself as a singer and songwriter, a photographer specializing in commercial advertisements, and a veteran rocker, all while enduring and overcoming all kinds of different hardships.
Man loving freedom and peace

Being the first Bohemian in Korea, Han (born in 1948) has undergone transformations to an avant garde way of thinking. He is the creator of Korean-style folk music, and has served as a poet and artist who expressed his thoughts in music in the most realistic fashion. He has established a new direction for Korean pop music and incessantly conducted new experiments--causing a big stir among musicians and fans in the country--and embraced challenge as well as opposition. However, the music industry in the country has forced this lonely explorer to remain a vagabond.

As a high school student, Han was living with his grandparents when his father, who was a nuclear physicist, went missing. Upon hearing the news about his father, he decided to go to America to study. He had difficulties adapting to life in a strange country during his early days in America, but he came to realize his talent in music after he met a counseling teacher named "Hall". While majoring in veterinary medicine in college, he developed great affection for photography after transferring to a photography school. He returned to Korea in 1969 and began his career as a folk music singer.

While working as a designer as a grade-three level civil servant at a design packaging center, he would stage impressive performances with songs conveying his philosophy and life experiences at college towns in Seoul. He successfully attracted music fans with two songs he composed, namely "Wind and Me" sung by Kim Min-ki and "Go to a Happy World" sung by Yang Hee-eun. His tumultuous family life and poor sense of identity stemming from growing up in both Korea and America may well be the source of inspiration for his music.

As shown on the cover of his 2000 album "Eternal Sorrow", Han's life has been full of pain and suffering, which in turn became the psychological background for his music filled with his personal accounts as a "rocker of defiance". His background certainly made it difficult for people to make an accurate and fair judgment on the many achievements he has made as a rocker.

Han made his "shocking" debut through his legendary performance at the Namsan Drama Center in 1969. In 1974, he produced his debut album "Long, Long Way to Go" featuring the songs "Give Me Some Water" and "Go to a Happy World".
Photography: another means for overcoming suffering

Han was a persona non-grata in the authoritarian government of the 1970s, and continued to face many difficulties producing his albums. This great musician even had to struggle just to survive due to major financial difficulties, moving from one cheap rental home to another, and was happy just to have an opportunity to perform even at small theaters at a time when high-flying singers like Cho Yong-pil were organizing mega-concerts.

The unusual vocal performance and unorthodox guitar technique in the song "Give Me Some Water" made it difficult to categorize it as modern folk music. But Han was conveying the voices of laypeople who were struggling under oppressive governments. His second album, "Rubber Shoes", reflected the gloomy situation in that dark period through the image of a rubber shoe hanging on barbed wire. As might be expected, the albums were not welcomed by the oppressive military governments, and a sales ban was instantly imposed on the two albums "Long, Long Way to Go" and "Rubber Shoes". Even the original master of the "Rubber Shoes" album was burned and destroyed, and only with great difficulty was Han able to revive the album later on.

Many people are well aware that Han liked photography as much as he loved music. He has even published several pictorials of his photography works. These days he says he wishes to focus more on photography from now on. Asked to elaborate, Han explained about his "Gobi Queen (The Queen in the Gobi Desert)" project. He disclosed his plan to take a woman exhibiting typical Asian beauty to the Gobi Desert and take the most beautiful nude photos of her in the desert.

His published memoirs, entitled "Oldboy Han Dae-soo" and released early last winter, contain many interesting things about him. The book presents his memories of Jimmy Hendricks, Bob Dylan and the Sex Pistols, who attracted him so much when he was young, and accounts of his meetings with artists from all different genres in New York, as well as his view of women and the world. It would be fair to call the book his "artistic autobiography". In addition, pictures shown in many parts of the book which he himself took vividly illustrate the fact that Han's interest is not limited to music alone. Written expressions in the book are also so beautiful and sophisticated that they could be compared to those of professional writers. The credibility of information in the book is further enhanced by the thoroughness of Han's efforts in data gathering and analyses as well.

Han's love life is just as dramatic as his music life. We cannot talk about his personal life without considering his Russian wife, who is 22 years his junior. Oksana is his second wife. While living alone as a single man for four years after divorcing his Korean wife in 1989, he had what he says was an ordained encounter with Oksana one day when he visited his Russian colleague's home. He says he fell deeply in love with Oksana after he became attracted by her bright and unreserved smiles and candid behavior.
In the late 1960s, when imperialistic ideals were casting their influence on the war in the form of the Vietnam War, Han got a first-hand look at anti-war demonstrations comprised of thousands of hippies wearing flowers in their hair, who demanded "We want flowers, not military tanks". When he witnessed the peaceful parade of hippies as a young man, Han decided to become a pacifist who dreams only innocent dreams of love. His identity that he forged on that day remains firm today, some four decades later.


1966 1966 Attends New Hampshire University in the United States
1968 1968 Makes debut as singer and song writer
1970 Works as a designer at the Korea Design Packaging Center
1970 Participates in the National Exhibition of Korea (Photography)
1974 Makes the top 10 singers in the first Korean Pop Music Festival
1997 Editors' Award at the Korea Poets' Association
2003 Special Contribution Award at KBS Pop Music Awards

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