Cui Jian - Feature on BBC World from 1995

I found this while looking for some live footage I have of Cui Jian (which I can't find) and it was interesting to watch it with the hindsight of twenty years. I met Cui Jian when he came to Japan around this time and interviewed him for the Japan Times. He was incredibly impressive. It's probably the only feature I wrote which was edited in a way I wasn't happy with, the article having what could be perceived as controversial statements removed. How China has changed in the last 20 years. Cui Jian was a pioneer of the music scene, helping to pave the way for many others.

Cui Jian first burst upon the Chinese music scene in 1986 at a nationally televised pop music competition staged at Beijing Worker’s Stadium. The other acts were mostly bland Cantonese pop, or crass imitators of American MOR rock, which made the contrast of seeing the then 25 year old Cui Jian, swaggering on stage dressed in army greens and gyrating to his pulsating electric guitar, all the more illuminating. The rock revolution had arrived. Bootlegs of Cui Jian’s televised debut circulated around the country like wildfire. ‘Nothing to My Name’ became an anthem for students during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. Born in 1961 to parents of Korean descent, he was a trumpet player with the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra before becoming smitten with smuggled tapes of western rock music. In post-Mao China, Cui Jian was John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Kurt Cobain rolled into one, a one-man rock and roll revolution, blending in Chinese folk music and traditional Chinese instruments, such as the oboe-like Suona, heard on this song. Pushed to the margins of the Chinese music scene, where he is seen as the bad boy of rock 'n' roll, Cui Jian was not allowed to play public concerts in Beijing, until 2003 when he supported the Rolling Stones. In 2014 he directed his first film, Blue Sky Bones.
http://www.farsidemusic.com/acatalog/COMPILATIONS_by_paul.html#aRGNET1122
https://farsidemusic.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/rough-guide-to-the-music-of-china-vol-1/
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