Huong Lan

Huong Lan - Diva of Vietnamese Traditional Pop Music

Huong Lan (1956-     ) a former child prodigy in South Vietnam who at the age of 5 made her professional debut on the traditional Vietnamese opera stage known as cai luong alongside her famous father, Huu Phuoc.  Born as Tran Thi Ngoc Anh, her father had come up with her stage name combining the names of two cai luong actresses that he had deeply admired, Thanh Huong and Ut Bach Lan.  Five years after her stage debut,  she would demonstrate her successful transition to Vietnamese pop music during a national television appearance in South Vietnam singing one of legendary songwriter / singer Duy Khanh's most famous songs, Ai Ra Xu Hue.  During her teenage years, Huong Lan juggled both careers as a Vietnamese pop singer recording for several major record labels in Saigon, mainly for the Shotguns record label, and as a performer on the cai luong stage following in the footsteps of her father.  Ngoc Chanh, the owner of the Shotguns record label, had taken a particular liking to her singing voice and had found many of her recordings for his record label to be quite impressive.  Ngoc Chanh had seen strong star potential in Huong Lan and therefor, revealed to her father toward the end of 1974 of his plans to produce a solo studio album for her that could hopefully make her a pop music star.  Unfortunately, such plans would not come to fruition due to the political situation during the last months before the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Huong Lan married fellow cai luong performer Chi Tam on December of 1975 and welcomed the birth of a son the following year.  Due to the new regime's governmental restrictions imposed on Vietnam's performing arts sector after 1975, Huong Lan had to put aside her career as a pop music singer during the last three years she spent in Saigon before moving to France in 1978.  Once in Paris, the joys of beginning a new life and breaking away from oppressive communism would only be short-lived.  In order to provide for her family, Huong Lan found work as a cook for a small family-owned restaurant in Paris.  She also welcomed the birth of another son in Paris in 1978.  Just when life seemed to offer more than its fair share of challenges, Huong Lan's marriage fell apart and finally ended in divorce in 1982.  Right around this time was when she was approached by by Thuy Nga Paris to record music for the label.  Financially strapped and in deep depression, she used recording music as a form of healing as she poured out her grief  and pain in song.  Her poignant interpretations on the songs she had recorded, particularly with her cover of Ngay Ve in which she would later appear on video for Paris By Night in 1984 was widely received and turned her into one of Thuy Nga's most popular recording artists overnight.  As her singing career was starting to take flight, Huong Lan made the decision to relocate to Southern California the following year which by then had the largest concentrated population of resettled former Vietnamese nationals.  For over 30 years, Huong Lan has managed to maintain one of the longest professional associations with Thuy Nga Paris and has performed on Paris By Night more times than any other artist.  She has appeared on a total of 71 volumes of the popular music video series, as a solo or as part of a duo/ensemble with other artists such as Thanh Tuyen, Ai Van, Thai Chau, Nguyen Hung, Che Linh, Tuan Vu, Giang Tu, Minh Vuong, Hong Nga, Huong Thuy, Tam Doan, Mai Thien Van, Hoai Nam, Tan Phat and Chi Tam.

Besides Thuy Nga Paris, Huong Lan has also partaken on numerous collaborations as a recording artist for other major Vietnamese music production labels based in the United States since the 1980s such as Thanh Lan, Lang Van, Thuy Anh, Da Lan, Doi Magazine and Asia Entertainment.  Her reign as the most popular female singer of traditional Vietnamese popular music would remain for nearly a decade.  Upon resettling in Southern California in 1985, Huong Lan befriended Nam Tran who was the executive producer and host of a weekly Vietnamese language television show called Vietnam Program which aired every Saturday morning on KSCI Channel 18.  Initially seen as a way to promote her music and gain for herself a wider audience, Huong Lan started making frequent guest appearances on the television program.  Her popularity with viewer audiences coupled with her show of dedication prompted Nam Tran to make Huong Lan the show's permanent co-host, as well as associate producer.  For many consecutive years, Huong Lan kept at her hectic schedule of performing weekly at Ritz and Caravelle Nightclubs in Anaheim, California, performing at live shows in faraway destinations every other week, a grueling recording schedule for a handful of different music production labels simultaneously (since she was in such high demand), taping a weekly television program, and even running her own music retail store, Huong Lan Music.  And not to mention, on top of all that, she was also a single mother raising two young sons then.  Most of Huong Lan's fans and her public were not aware of the challenges in her personal life during these years, since she hadn't ever shown neglect toward either her career or her audience.

In the years that followed, Huong Lan's personal and professional life would change for the better.  In 1988, she starred in a live production revival of a cai luong classic, Tam Long Cua Bien, with an ensemble cast that included her father, Huu Phuoc, Thanh Duoc, Viet Hung, Dung Thanh Lam, Bang Chau and her childhood friend, Phuong Mai.  As the second half of a major concert event that combined both Vietnamese pop music and cai luong, the cast performed at the Anaheim Convention Center in front of an audience that was 7,000 strong.  This would be followed by another triumphant cai luong live production of Nua Doi huong Phan, where Huong Lan again played the lead alongside veteran cai luong performers such as Huu Phuoc, Thanh Duoc, Dung Thanh Lam, Kieu My Hanh, Ha My Lien, Phuong Mai and newcomer, Bich Ngoc.  The enormous success Huong Lan and her cast members enjoyed with both live productions also brought about a resurgence in popularity of the cai luong stage, as well as introducing the traditional Southern Vietnamese opera to a whole new generation of younger Vietnamese-Americans.  The following year, Huong Lan would return to perform once again in a cai luong live production at the Anaheim Convention Center.  This time she and ex-husband, Chi Tam, would reunite on stage to portray the lead roles for Lan va Diep.  Audience turn out for their performance of Lan va Diep nearly totaled 10,000.  The year of 1989 was also a turning point in her personal life as Huong Lan became a newlywed.

While at the top of her game, in 1994 Huong Lan accepted an invitation to perform on a concert tour of Vietnam with other overseas Vietnamese singers Duc Huy, Thao Mi and Quoc Anh.  She would later regret making that decision of having agreed to tour Vietnam then.  At the time, normalized relations between the US and Vietnam had yet to formally take place.  With only the trade embargo on Vietnam having been lifted by the US government since February of that year, relations between the two countries were still in talks and far from settled.  For any former Vietnamese national who had even dared to either do business in Vietnam then or to go public with having any ties with the current regime would often be met with extreme animosity from the predominantly anti-communist overseas Vietnaemese communities.  For Huong Lan, this would be no different.  When information of her acceptance to partake on a national concert tour of Vietnam hit the press within Vietnamese communities in the United States, Huong Lan was branded as a communist sympathizer and a traitor toward the overseas Vietnamese community.  Even some of her most loyal fans turned against her and boycotted her live performances.  She had been blacklisted.  During this difficult period for Huong Lan, to make things worse many show promoters avoided booking her fearing that the controversy she was surrounded with would have a negative reflection of low ticket sales, as well as the possibility of picketing protesters.  A fallen star she had become, Huong Lan's career for the future was now filled with uncertainties.

Like the saying, time heals all, fortunately for Huong Lan, the matters that had brought both her career and life to a screeching halt back in 1994 would eventually be resolved by just that.  Since then, she has been able to regain and salvage her rapport with her public and fans.  A bonafied, legendary Vietnamese artist, now in her fifties Huong Lan remains active in her singing career, dividing her time between Vietnam and the United States where she continues to record music, appear on music videos for Thuy Nga Paris and perform at live shows for her many fans.   Among her most popular recorded signature songs are Chiec Ao Ba Ba, Con Thuong Rau Dang Moc Sau He, Long Me, Hinh Bong Que Nha, Chuyen Mot Nguoi Di and Cay Dan Bo Quen.  

Huong Lan has a younger sister, Huong Thanh, who is an established Vietnamese singer based in Paris, France.  Both of her younger brothers, Jean-Claude Tran and Steve Tran, are established actors of French cinema and television.

Link(s):

Huong Lan Fan Page on Facebook