Hacken Lee
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- This is a Chinese name; the family name is 李 (Li)
Hacken Lee (Traditional Chinese: 李克勤; born December 6, 1967), is a male Hong Kong Cantopop singer well-known in Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, other parts of South-East Asia and even the United States for performing slow pop ballads.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Years: 1985-1995
Lee won the 1985 Hong Kong 19 District Singing Contest singing "Love in the Fog" (霧之戀), a song made famous by Alan Tam, and was offered a contract with Polygram Records. As a new and relatively unknown singer, the sales of his first EP album "李克勤 (EP)" did not even reach the 5,000 mark. However, in 1988, he appeared in a TVB television series "Teenage No More" (不再少年時), which ignited his popularity and his career started taking off.
In 1992, he reached the first peak in his career. His song "Red Sun" (紅日) is still widely recognized to this day as the prime "feel-good" song in Hong Kong society (he wrote the lyrics himself). This song appeared right at the moment when Cantopop was blooming, and his music was well-received. His maiden concert held at the Hong Kong Coliseum in 1993 was very well received, with all the tickets sold out.
However, his fortunes took a turn for the worse from 1995 onwards following various contract disputes with his record company and a concert with a very low turnout. For a short time, he had no recording contract and became a presenter for TVB for shows such as the music programme "Jade Solid Gold", Miss Hong Kong and numerous sports events, notably soccer. At the same time, he also appeared occasionally in dramas for TVB. Although his music career was at a low point then, he made a name for himself as a host and actor.
[edit] Current Career: 1999-Present
He signed with Universal Music, his current record company, in 1999. However, it was not until 2001 before he began to have successive hits once more, including "Flying Flower" (飛花), "Feet of Fortune" (前後腳), "I Won't Sing" (我不會唱歌) and "The Grasp of Love" (愛不釋手).
The turning point of his career came in late 2001, after a collaboration with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert, together with subsequent sales of its recordings, were a success, and so were his early 2002 concert and subsequent sales of that concert's recordings.
The TVB drama, Legal Entanglement, in which he co-starred and which was aired around the time of the 2002 concert, also achieved high ratings and was one of TVB's most popular dramas that year. He later won a "Most Favourite Character" award for this role at the 2002 TVB Anniversary Awards. He was also appointed the host of the 2002 World Cup and sang its local theme song, which dominated the local charts for quite some time.
He has won the TVB Jade Solid Gold Award three times, twice in succession (2002 and 2003) and another one in 2005.
In 2003, he cooperated with Alan Tam in a series of successful concerts around the world, including multiple shows in HK and Las Vegas. The concerts were named "Neighbors" (「左麟右李」) which is a play of words with a well known Chinese four-character idiom 「左鄰右里」 using homonyms 麟 and 李 in the artists' names. The concert became known for the "happy culture" which it inspired, especially welcomed in a period of economic downturn and an air of pessimism in HK society as a whole.
He also partnered with Joey Yung for the first time in 2004, in a collaboration better known by another four-character idiom "Urgency cannot afford delay" (克不容緩), once again a Chinese pun using the artists' names 克 and 容.
Lee was the first Chinese artist to release a DualDisc. Entitled Hacken Lee Concert Hall (李克勤演奏廳), the DVD side of the disc featured "Making Of" footage. Live recordings of the songs, in Surround Sound, were featured on the CD side.
Other hits (among hundreds) include:
- "The Half-Moon Serenade" (月半小夜曲)-1987 (re-released in 1989)
- "The Exhibition Hall" (大會堂演奏廳)-1988
- "Unchangeable In My Lifetime" (一生不變)-1989
- "Deep Deep Deep" (深深深)-1989
- "A Thousand and One Evenings" (一千零一夜)-1990
- "I Just Want Your Consent" (只想您會意)-1992
- "Regress" (回首)-1993
- "I Love No Other" (一生不愛別人)-1993
- "Hope" (希望)-1994
- "Lonely Flyer" (一個人飛)-1996
- "By My Side" (在我身邊)-1997
- "The Football Chronicles" (球迷奇遇記)-1998
- "Tall Girl" (高妹)-2002
- "Three Thousand and One Evenings" (三千零一夜)-2003
- "Position of Goodbye Kiss" (吻別的位置)-2004
- "Flying Trapeze" (空中飛人)-2004
- "Who Can I Ask" (愛可以問誰)-2005
- "Seoul" (情非首爾)-2005
In 2006, he held a series of sell-out concerts (sponsored by Carlsberg) during the Chinese New Year period at the HK Coliseum, from January 28 through to February 6.
