Susan Wong - My Live Stories (2012) [Hi-Res]

Susan Wong maintains a low-profile in her home town of Hong Kong yet is one of the best selling Hong Kong artists throughout South East Asia in recent years. If you talk to many serious music fans in South East Asia they’ll give rave recommendations of Susan, who has been labeled as the ‘Queen of audiophile’, for her soft and sultry vocal style and laid-back music that has won the hearts of her wide and diverse legion of loyal fans. From those audiophile enthusiasts who enjoy listening to fine recordings to young listeners who adore the heart touching love songs the one thing that unites all her fans is their knowledge that they’ve discovered Asia’s best kept secret.

Susan Wong was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Sydney, Australia with her family at the age of seven. Musically inclined from a young age, she learned to play the piano at age five and later she also learned the violin. At school in Sydney, she sang alto in the choir and appeared in the school dramas (Gilbert & Sullivan & the like) and entered a number of piano competitions. She received an associate diploma (ATCL) in piano from Trinity College London.

Her first break in the music world was at the age of sixteen when her parents entered her for a singing contest in Sydney. It was organized by TVB with the winner to be offered a recording contract with one of the big music companies in Hong Kong. She won the competition and was sent back to Hong Kong and met with the TVB producers who wanted her to sign with one of the music labels. After much deliberation she finally decided that it wasn’t right for her at that time and instead returned to Australia to study at University. She pretty much just settled back into life at University and put aside any dreams of a music career.

After graduating from university, she returned to Hong Kong in 1997 to help run her family’s accounting business and gained CPA certification. One of her students who she was teaching piano was working for a Hong Kong independent label, and she asked the boss if they wanted a singer. Susan started recording her favourite English songs and made the album ‘Close To You’. When the album came out it in 2002, it was widely acclaimed and quickly became a favourite of music stores to play and the album was soon climbing up the sales charts in countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. The six album releases since ‘Close To You’ have also enjoyed wide critical and commercial success establishing Susan as probably the No.1 selling English language female singer of her genre throughout South East Asia.

In early 2007, Susan Wong signed a new recording agreement with Hong Kong based Evolution Limited and released her first album under Evolution in August 2007.

The first release under this agreement, Someone Like You, was recorded in Nashville, USA and was quick to win critical and commercial success throughout S.E.Asia. The success of the SACD version in particular bore testament to the fine production, vocal performance and mastering by Grammy award winning engineer Doug Sax. The album was domestically released in Japan in September 2008.

In Summer 2008 a newly invigorated Susan, began working on fresh ideas for her follow-up album. In September 2008 Susan travelled to Geneva, Switzerland to work on demos with producer Adrien Z. As Susan explained “He brought my music ideas to life. He was able to transform the songs I want to sing into the styling which I dare tried.” The album recording was completed in February/March 2009. In her blog Susan said of the album; “I guess I took a "more hands on" approach with this album, more than any of the previous ones, as I felt the need to voice out my persona, be more individualistic and independent for my work.” Susan’s bossa nova inspired version of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean received a lot of attention and radio play and the album sold widely across the region.

Inspired by the positive feedback to 511 Susan was anxious to start working on her next album and within months of the release of 511 she was forming ideas for new recordings, choosing to again work with producer Adrien Zerbini and arranger Ignacio Lamas. With songs for the albums mostly coming from the late 1960’s/early 1970’s Susan and her band worked on a relaxed, natural acoustic pop feel lead by Ignacio’s skilled guitar style. With some fine performances and some radically rearranged interpretations of well known classics the new album, Step Into My Dreams is one of the most anticipated album releases in South East Asia this year. Step into her world…