Sally-Yeh03

Fan Favourite

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Achieving longevity in the world of Pop music is not an easy feat, and the list of artists who have really managed to keep their careers going successfully for more than a decade or so is a fairly exclusive one.   The world of Cantopop is no different, but one artist who has remained very much at the top her game for more than three decades is Sally Yeh.
 
With more than 30 albums in her discography, a long list of industry awards, and even acting roles in more than 30 movies, Yeh has been a major force in the Hong Kong music and entertainment scene.   Her popularity is in no small part due to her powerful vocals and seemingly irrepressible onstage energy. 
 
Born in Taiwan and raised in Canada, Yeh also has the advantage of being able to sing in English and Mandarin, a talent that has undoubtedly broadened her appeal even further.
 
But more than talent, Sally’s popularity is arguably due to the very genuine affinity and rapport she has with her fans, a fact that was very clear at her concert at Venetian last month.
 
The appropriately named concert tour ‘Sally Yeh Intimately Yours 2013’ not only gave fans a chance to hear Sally sing more than 35 of her hit songs, but also featured a number of short bio films in between sets, offering a very personal look into the life of this Cantopop Diva.  From her early childhood growing up in British Columbia, Canada, to her blossoming into a beautiful Pop sensation in the early 1980’s, to her very active career and lifestyle today (including competitive badminton), the films showed a very human side of this Pop icon.
 
“To have my fans know me on a more personal basis means everything, because life is not about glamour, it’s about being real and sincere and truthful”, Sally told CLOSER after the concert. “The audience knows you and actually you know them because you’ve been around so long and you know what they’ve been through, because you’ve been through the same things, so there’s a deep connection, not just a surface one.”
 
At no time in the concert was this connection more evident than when Sally decided to take her act off the stage and down into the crowd.  Casually wandering around the thousands-strong audience in the CotaiArena, her fans quickly mobbed around her for photo opportunities and hand shakes. And remarkably, despite the throngs of adoring fans pressing in around her, Sally continued to perform and sing, never missing a single beat!
 
“After you’ve been around so long, it becomes a connection with your audience.  You’re not just on stage singing to them, you are singing with them, and you are singing things that you’ve been through together”, she explains.
 
‘When people see me on the street they don’t just say ‘hey that’s Sally’, they say ‘Hi Sally’, they call me by name and are very friendly, and after a while it becomes a friendship, rather than an artist and an audience.
 
“Nowadays it’s all about packaging and everybody’s just focused the artists looking pretty, but as an artist that’s not important. What’s important is what you can give from the inside.”
 
 
Best Original Song for the soundtrack of ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’ (1987) 
– 7th Hong Kong Film Awards
 
Most Popular Hong Kong Female Singer 
– Jade Solid Gold Top Ten Awards (1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993)
 
Golden Needle Lifetime Achievement Award (2011)
– 33rd RTHK Top Ten Chinese Gold Song Music Award Ceremony (recognised as one of the highest honors in the Chinese music industry)
 
 
 

 

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