WEEKENDER
Lee Jang-hee holds concerts on the island
Legendary folk singer Lee Jang-hee’s life has been anything but ordinary. Defying his family’s wishes for him to become a doctor, Lee gave up on his bachelor’s degree and decided to pursue music.
ULLEUNG ISLAND — Legendary folk singer Lee Jang-hee’s life has been anything but ordinary.
Defying his family’s wishes for him to become a doctor, Lee dropped out of Yonsei University’s Biology Department, gave up on his bachelor’s degree and decided to pursue music as his career.
After he debuted as a singer in 1971, the mustachioed Lee, who rode motorcycles and wore leather jackets, had become a sensation among music lovers who struggled under the increasingly authoritarian Park Chung-hee government.
Compared to many singers back then who sang songs adapted from American pop music, he composed his own songs. His singing style, casual narrative-like and freewheeling, together with true-to-life lyrics, was one of a kind. He was a symbol of freedom and defiance.
It was only a surprise when he left the country in 1980, abandoning all his fame, retiring from music and starting from scratch as an immigrant to the U.S. Lee who could barely speak English opened a laundromat and a restaurant before he founded Radio Korea in Los Angeles in 1988.
When people belatedly learned Lee returned home and settled down on the small rocky Ulleung Island where he farmed deodeok roots, they said it is “all too Lee Jang-hee-like.”
“I first stepped foot on this island in 1996. The ferry was going between two sheer cliff faces on its way to Dodong Port, giving me a feeling of awe and mystery as if I was watching a scene from The Lord of the Rings,” Lee said. The singer who was adamant as a boy to live life fully on his own terms, free from everything, settled on the island in the East Sea in 2004.
The 70-year-old singer is now singing his songs again with his old buddies at a place he calls “Ulleung, the Heaven.”
Returning as musician after four decades
Ulleung Heaven Art Center, which opened on May 8, is a four-story building built on land donated by the singer. There Lee holds his concerts with two former members of his old band “the Light of the Orient”; bassist Cho Won-ik, who came to Ulleung Island to meet Lee decided to settle on the island as a music teacher, and guitarist Kang Geun-sik with whom Lee felt was on the same wavelength when they first met and spent days and nights talking about music.
The center is next to his 100-year-old house he renovated. Located under awl-shaped Songgot-bong Peak, it has a pond Lee dug himself and rock monuments that bear autographs of his 1970s and 1980s musician friends. Black goats idly graze on the grasses.
Ahead of his third concert, on May 15, Ulleung Heaven Art Center was crowded with middle-aged tourists clad in colorful outdoor clothing, waiting for his concert.
Some shared their personal stories back from the 1970s with their friends, looking at photos of Lee and his friends, including top singers Song Chang-sik and Jo Young-nam who started their music careers at C’est Si Bon, a popular Seoul-based music cafe.
Seo Soon-sun, a 56-year-old woman from Jinju who came to Lee’s concert with her husband, said her heart was full of expectations for the concert. “Lee with his unique music and fashion was an idol for people of my age. On school picnics and trips, his music was always with us,” she said.
His concert at the small 150-seat hall was fully booked like his previous two sold-out concerts. Lee and his silver-haired friends in their 70s performed their old songs by heart, with some of the lyrics echoed back to them by the audience.
Starting with the sweet and melodic song “The Girl and I,” he sang his hit songs “The Forgotten Person,” “That is You” and “I Will Give You Every- thing.” When Lee sang “A Shot of Memories,” the audience all sang along. During “Who Am I,” which he composed right after his ex-wife and two children left him in the U.S., spectators breathlessly paid attention to the musical monologue-like singing musician and his painful personal story.
“I went to America because I was fascinated with the country that is home to the pop music that I loved. After three years since I immigrated to the United States, my ex-wife and children came back to Seoul without leaving a single note. I was in deep despair and it was the hardest moment in my entire life,” he said. “All the songs I wrote are my life per se.”
At the height of his career in 1975, the government started a massive nationwide “purification” of the music industry and most of his songs were banned. They banned his song “That is You” claiming the lyrics find fault in others, while “Lightless Window” was accused of instigating adultery and “A Shot of Memories” binge drinking.
The singer-songwriter said, “Even if some regrets remain, life goes on and I realized I had to leave it to my fate.” Choi Won-seong, a 66-year-old from Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, said Lee’s concert gave him much-needed healing. “I woke up at dawn to get on a ferry to come to Lee’s concert. The travel was tiring, but seeing him performing, it feels like it blew out all the fatigue and my mind healed,” he said.
The free-spirited Lee now dreams of a new life with his old friends on Ulleung Island. “Over the past 40 years, I’ve forgotten how much I loved music. Now I realize how great and blessed it is to play music with friends I knew since when I thought music is my all and everything, and drink together in the evening. Now I’m 70 and what a pleasure it is that I can do what I love in the last chapter of my life!” Lee laughed.
The singer who was adamant as a boy to live life fully on his own terms, free from everything, settled on the island in the East Sea.