VietCeleb.BlogSpot.com: Khanh Ha

Khanh Ha: Overseas Vietnamese
Diva of Pop Music

Khánh Hà (1952- ) is one of the most successful overseas Vietnamese singers, and has been hailed as one of the divas of Vietnamese pop music. Born in Da Lat to a family of musical performers, her father being Lữ Liên from the popular Northern Vietnamese singing trio known as AVT, Khanh Ha is one of seven children. Prior to her entrance into the world of music, her two older siblings, Bích Chiêu and Tuấn Ngọc, had already become established singers in Saigon. Khanh Ha began her singing career at the age of 16, when she made her professional debut at the Queen Bee Nightclub in Saigon as a featured performer for the "Hippies a Go-Go" weekly revue show promoted by Trường Kỳ. Shortly after, Khanh Ha along with her older brother, Anh Tú, formed a group called The Flowers that performed for various nightclubs catering to US military personnel in Saigon and throughout South Vietnam. Khanh Ha, Anh Tu, and younger sister, Thúy Anh, would also become known as the singing trio, Thúy Hà Tú. Khanh Ha and her siblings' group would go through a series of name changes, as well as changes in personnel, from being called The Flowers to The Blue Jets, and then to finally, The Uptight formed in 1972, with the addition of another younger sister, Lan Anh, as the drummer.

Upon resettling to the United States after the Fall of Saigon, Khanh Ha and the Uptight managed to successfully continue with their careers performing for nightclubs and shows for overseas Vietnamese audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. Despite Khanh Ha's trademark of being able to sing exceptionally in French and English, in 1981 Khanh Ha produced her first solo album, Goi Giac Mo Xua, with the help of musician Tùng Giang which consisted of recordings all in Vietnamese and released on audio cassette.

In the years that followed, Khanh Ha and The Uptight would maintain a busy touring schedule, while with her recording career she remained a bit more selective. Unlike many of her colleagues, for much of the 1980s Khanh Ha chose to only record for a handful of music production labels, among them Lang Van and Diem Xua Productions which had each produced solo albums for her before she set out on forming her own label, Khanh Ha Productions, in 1988. Shortly after the formation of Khanh Ha Productions, Khanh Ha and her siblings also embarked on another business venture opening up their own nightclub, Chez Moi, in Alhambra, California which remained in operation for a number of years. During the 1990s, Khanh Ha Productions would become one of the most prolific overseas Vietnamese music production labels with a comparable level of production and distribution in the ranks of Thuy Nga Paris, Asia Productions, Nguoi Dep Binh Duong and Lang Van. To date, Khanh Ha Productions has produced well over 50 albums on compact disc along with several music videotapes on DVD and karaoke laser discs. In addition to recordings under her own label, Khanh Ha has maintained a long professional association with Thuy Nga Paris and has been a regular performer on the popular music video series, Paris By Night, for the past 30 years. Despite a career that has lasted for more than 40 years, she remains as one of the most popular Vietnamese singers today. Recently, Khanh Ha has also appeared on music videos produced by Van Son Entertainment.

Happily married since 1992 to singer To Chan Phong, Khanh Ha is a mother of two grown sons. Khanh Ha's youngest sister is singer Luu Bich. She has recorded many duets with other artists including her brothers, Tuan Ngoc and Anh Tu, her sister, Luu Bich, Ý Lan, Lam Nhat Tien, Elvis Phuong, Quang Dung, Bang Kieu and Tran Thai Hoa. In recent years, Khanh Ha has traveled back to her native Vietnam on several extraordinarily successful concert tours where she played to sold out audiences at such major national venues like the Saigon Opera House and the Hoa Binh Municipal Theater in Ho Chi Minh City. She along with her husband and youngest son are long time residents of the posh suburb of Anaheim Hills, California.