Yao Lee, also credited as Yao Li, Yiu Lei and Hue Lee, was a Chinese singer active from the 1930s to the 1970s. She was the sister of Yao Min, also a famous singer and songwriter. She was considered one of the Seven Great Singing Stars of Shanghai in the 1940s.
Biography
Born Yiu Sau Wan and raised in Shanghai, Yao began performing on the radio in 1935 at the age of 13. When she was 14, she recorded her first single with Yan Hua called "New Little Cowherd". After being introduced by singers Zhou Xuan and Yan Hua, she was signed to Pathé Records when she was 16 in 1937, and the first record she released with the label was "Yearning for Sale". She married Wong Po Lo in 1947 and stopped her stage performance to devote time to her family. Following the Communist seizure of power in China in 1949, popular music was considered ideologically suspect and Yiu fled to Hong Kong in 1950 but continued her singing career with Pathé Records. In addition to releasing hit records, beginning in 1955 with the film 桃花江, she was also a playback singer for movie actresses. Many of the featured songs became popular. She stepped down from her singing career in 1967 after the death of her brother Yao Min. In 1969, she accepted the invitation to become the General Manager and Producer at EMI Music Hong Kong. In 1970, she travelled to Taiwan in an effort to sign Teresa Teng to EMI for the Hong Kong market but was unsuccessful. Yiu produced records for many artists during her time as a producer and retired from this position in 1977.
Career
During the 1930s and 1940s, Yao Lee's high, soft singing style was typical of Chinese popular music of the time. She performed numerous popular standards, such as Wishing You Happiness and Prosperity, "I Can't Have Your Love", and "By the Suzhou River" with her brother Yao Min, arguably the best-known Chinese pop songwriter of the shidaiqu era. She is famous for her 1940 version of Rose, Rose, I Love You, later recorded by Frankie Laine in the United States with English lyrics. . Yao was known as "the Silver Voice" alluding to fellow Shanghai singer Zhou Xuan, who was known as "the Golden Voice". With increasing Western influences in the region after World War II and her move to Hong Kong, Yao Lee's singing style changed. She was introduced to more Western popular music and became an admirer of American singer Patti Page, whom she emulated by lowering her voice and incorporating some similar vocal mannerisms. As a result, Yao is sometimes called "Hong Kong's Patti Page." One of her biggest '50s records was "The Spring Breeze Kisses My Face". Yao was extremely prolific with over 400 gramophone records attributed to her. Her 1959 song "Ren Sheng Jiu Shi Xi" is featured in the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians, in the scene when the matriarch grandmother, played by veteran Chinese-American actor Lisa Lu, first appears.
