Roman Tam Pak-sin (Chinese: 譚百先; pinyin: Tán Bǎixiān; 12 February 1945 – 18 October 2002), known professionally by his stage name Law Man (Chinese: 羅文; pinyin: Luó Wén), was a Hong Kong singer. He is regarded as the "Grand Godfather of Cantopop".[1]
Career
Born in Baise, Guangxi, China, with family roots in Guiping, Guangxi. He moved to Guangzhou (Canton) in 1947 at the age of two. He later emigrated to Hong Kong in 1962 at the age of 17 because his mother fell ill and was only able to get better medical treatment in Hong Kong.[2] He was poor and was only able to sleep with a sleeping bag and a radio on the floor of a banking building. His musical interests started from listening to the radio. After forming a short-lived band known as Roman and the Four Steps to emulate The Beatles and winning a talent contest in Japan,[3][4] he became a contract singer under studios term at TVB. He briefly switched to Asia Television in the early 1990s. His stage name was actually a transliteration of his English name, Roman.
Tam was also known for bending and breaking gender norms, with a "flamboyant" on-stage persona. He was the first Hong Kong pop star to perform in drag and was featured in a magazine while posing in the nude. Although the latter was controversial at the time, Tam "'got away with his on-stage flamboyance because of his off-stage discretion' and was accepted 'in mainstream Chinese culture at a time when homosexuality was outlawed'".[6] He never married and maintained a high degree of privacy in his personal life.[4]
Tam officially retired in 1996, but continued to perform occasionally with other artists.[4]
^HKVPradio, "Roman Tam: The Grand Godfather of Cantopop". Archived from the original on 18 April 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2011., Retrieved 7 April 2007. Article archived in 2008. Excerpted from the original article in Rhythm magazine by Lucia Chan, 8 June 2004.
^Allen Chun; Ned Rossiter; Brian Shoesmith, eds. (2004). Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos, and Aesthetic Industries. Routeledge. ISBN9781135791506.
