There are always a couple of great archival compilations of notable but sorely misplaced artists from beyond the borders of the US each year. Compilations that salvage catalogs that have become scattered due to time, war and regional conflict, and the changing ambitions of the artists featured on them. As for the reasons that you might not have heard of Vietnamese singer Phương Tâm before 2021, you can count all three of the aforementioned culprits.
Starting out as a charismatic dancer and face of the Saigon nightlife during the early '60s, her charm and talent demonstratively translated into a short-lived singing career before leaving the heat and passion of the stage lights for a different kind of warmth and devotion found through matrimony and domestic life in the US. Before embracing the quiet life, however, Phương recorded several dozen tracks for the major Vietnamese record labels operating at the time. Despite the escalating conflict in her country, the record industry in Vietnam thrived up into the '70s, with Phương's voice, and comfort with a diverse array of styles, serving as both inspiration and caster mold for the work of those who followed.
As you can imagine, many of the recordings she produced during her brief flirtation with pop stardom did not survive the conflict in her country, making it difficult to fully grasp the breadth of her discography. If the enormity of the task of recovering and assembling the disparate threads of this history was a deterrent to its eventual realignment, you wouldn't know it from listening to Sublime Frequencies's compilation of 25 of Phương's recorded singles.
The compilation is the product of Phương's daughter Hannah Hà's natural curiosity in her mother's previous life as a performer. Her inquisitiveness lead her to connect with Mark Gergis, the man who compiled Sublime Frequencies's 2010 compilation Saigon Rock and Soul. Working with audiophiles and musicians from around the globe, these benevolent co-conspirators were able to recover some remarkably well-preserved masters and tapes, several of which ended up becoming Magical Nights - Saigon Surf Twist & Soul (1964-1966).
While the compilation may sound like little more than an intellectual curiosity and a curatorial effort in what was known locally as action music (nhạc kích động, in Vietnamese), it would be improper to dismiss it as merely that, and nothing else. For lack of a better word, Phương's singing rocks! And the bands that backed her up play with an inveterate confidence of players for whom this style of rock 'n roll was their native vernacular- because in a sense it was. There isn't really a hint anywhere in this comp that Phương and her fellow musicians were imitating received styles and churning out derivative forms of rock, surf, and soul. In fact, these songs sound intensely localized to their time and place. This is partially due to efforts by the musicians to make a style of rock music that felt authentically Vietnamese, but also because of their simple enthusiasm for the material. They were clearly having a lot of fun making these recordings. And making these records obviously felt like important work to them at the time.
It would be a high hurdle to clear to find a rock collection that sounds this fresh and sincere elsewhere in 2021. And with a features length film's worth of genuine surf, psyche, and foot-loose soul to be had here, I'd be curious to know why you'd be willing to exert the effort. There is no sense in twisting yourself into knots, when you could simply step into the inviting glow of these Magical Nights, courtesy of Phương Tâm, the precocious explorations of her daughter Hannah, and their supporters and collaborator.
