From wikipedia (here):
Cui Jian [tsʰwéɪ tɕjɛ̂n] (born 2 August 1961) is a Beijing-based Chinese singer-songwriter, trumpeter and guitarist. Affectionately called "Old Cui" (Chinese: 老崔; pinyin: lǎo Cuī), he is considered to be a pioneer in Chinese rock music and one of the first Chinese artists to write rock songs. For this distinction Cui Jian is often labeled "The Father of Chinese Rock".
Cui Jian grew up in a musical family in Beijing - his father was ethnic Korean and a professional trumpet player and his mother was a member of a Korean dance troupe. Cui Jian himself started playing the trumpet at the age of fourteen and joined the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981, at the age of twenty. He was first introduced to rock during this period when friends smuggled in illicit recordings from Hong Kong and Bangkok. Inspired by the likes of Simon and Garfunkel and John Denver, Cui began learning to play the guitar.
In 1984 he formed Seven Ply Board with six other classically-trained musicians, including the saxophonist/suona player Liu Yuan. The seminal band was heavily influenced by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Talking Heads. They performed their own works - mostly soft rock and love songs - in local hotels and bars.
Cui Jian first shot to stardom in 1986, when he performed "Nothing to My Name" (一无所有; pinyin: Yì Wú Suǒ Yǒu) on a television talent show. The next year he left his permanent job with the orchestra. His band, now renamed ADO, included two foreign embassy employees: Hungarian bassist Kassai Balazs and Madagascan guitarist Eddie Randriamampionona. His first real album, Rock and Roll on the New Long March, was released in 1986.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cui created a hybrid and experimental music mix that cut across divisions between pop music genres. Cui's songs drew on folk and traditional music types, such as the Northwest Wind (Xibeifeng) peasant songs of the Loess Plateau of Shaanxi. At times they knowingly parodied old Communist Party sayings and proverbs. In 1991, for example, he set the old revolutionary song "Nanniwan" to rock music. In 1988 he performed at a concert broadcasted worldwide in conjunction with the Seoul Summer Olympic Games.
His earliest and best known works were spiced with Western popular music styles, such as punk, dance and jazz. Cui's advocation of a new internationalism and political awareness connected with many university students of the time.
Cui Jian reached the apex of his popularity during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when "Nothing to My Name" became an anthem to student protestors. Before the protests were violently broken up on 4–5 June, Cui frequently appeared with the students and was affirmed by Wu'er Kaixi, one of the prominent leaders of the movement, as highly influential among young Chinese of the time. The following government crackdown forced many rock musicians, Cui Jian included, into hiding in the other provinces. Sanctions proved relatively temporary and Cui was able to return to Beijing shortly afterward. In early 1990, he began his first rock tour entitled the "New Long March", with ten concerts scheduled in Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Chengdu and others. Midway through the tour, Cui Jian gained notoriety for appearing on stage wearing a red blindfold across his eyes before performing his well-known political anthem, "A Piece of Red Cloth", prompting the government to terminate the performance and cancel the remainder of the tour. After the tour, 1 million yuan was donated to help pay for the 1990 Asian Games, alleged by some to have been a disguised fine for his political indiscretion.
Wikipedia also has an entry on “Nothing to My Name” (here)
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