On the Thousand-Miles Road (Trên duong thiên ly)

Annotation — North Vietnamese Songs

Four songs on this 7" EP release, featuring on the Dihavina record label (# 6605), originally the state label of North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) before reunification in 1975, titled "Hành Khúc Giải Phóng" ("Liberation March") - also the name of the lead title. The other titles include the song "Bai Ca Nguoi San May Bay" ("The Song Of The Aircraft Hunter"), performed by Vietnamese Opera, Ballet and Music Theatre's Male Vocal Group, the song "Bai ca may ao" ("The Song of Jacket-Making"), performed by Vietnamese Opera, Ballet and Music Theatre's Female Vocal Group, and finally the track "Trên duong thiên ly" ("On the Thousand-Miles Road"), performed by Quoc Huong & Hoang Manh. The first song "Liberation March", performance credited to the "Chorus and Symphonic Orchestra", notes the devastation of war: "the village is in ruins, big streets are burning". So the "people rose like a tide", on the "path of liberation".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Dihavina 6605 ("Đĩa Hát Việt Nam"), four-track 45 rpm EP, sides CK 7 and CK 8. Side CK 7: "Liberation March" by Luu Nguyen and Long Hung, Chorus and Symphonic Orchestra, solo baryton Quang Hung, conductor Do Dung; "The Song of the Aircraft Hunter" by Van Luu, the Vietnamese Opera, Ballet and Music Theatre's male vocal group, accordeon Hong Quang. Side CK 8: "The Song of Jacket-Making" by Xuan Hong, Vietnamese Opera, Ballet and Music Theatre's female vocal group; "On the Thousand-Miles Road" by Phan The, solo tenor Quoc Huong, piano Hoang Manh. The front cover, titled "Hành khúc Giải phóng" and "Liberation March", is a watercolour of soldiers marching with a flag across mountain ridges under an orange sun, signed "L.T. Đức". The back, over a mountain landscape, lists the four tracks with their Vietnamese titles and "Distributors: Xunhasaba, 32 Hai Bà Trung, Hanoi, D.R. Vietnam." No times…

About the artist

Quoc Huong (1915-1984), born in Kien Thai commune, Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province, Vietnam, was a leading first-generation voice of Vietnamese revolutionary music. He began performing at 17, joined Viet Minh cultural-propaganda and military entertainment work during the First Indochina War, studied at the Budapest Conservatory from 1954, then worked at the Vietnamese Musical Theatre and, after 1975, with the Bong Sen troupe in Ho Chi Minh City. Named People's Artist (NSND) in 1984, the year he died of cancer. [Source: hopampro.com; bcdcnt.net]

Themes

Vietnamese Perspective · Vietnamese Patriotic

In collections

North Vietnamese Songs