Li Jinguang
黎锦光
1904–1993
“King of Songs”
By Annie Y. Liu
Li Jinguang, the seventh of the accomplished Eight Li Brothers, joined his older brother Li Jinhui in the entertainment business in Shanghai and became a well-known composer and music editor. He was born in Hunan in 1904 and studied in Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Hunan, and Guangzhou before leaving the army in 1927 to join Li Jinhui’s Song and Dance Troupe, with whom he toured Southeast Asia. In 1936, he married performer Bai Hong; they had seven children before their divorce in 1950. Li also worked as the music editor for EMI (Pathé) Records in Shanghai starting in 1939, while continuing to compose music for Shanghai film companies.
He maintained a similar role after 1949 at the Shanghai Record Company (上海唱片公司), editing recordings of operas and songs. He composed and arranged more songs, publishing through the People’s Music Publishing House for decades until his retirement in 1970. During the Cultural Revolution, Li Jinguang endured persecution and was forced to do menial labor in a record factory. Much of his records and manuscripts were destroyed, and he did not work in music again until 1984, when he returned to the China Record Factory to re-edit and publish albums from the 1930s and 1940s, including songs performed by Zhou Xuan and Bai Hong. These albums were extremely popular, invoking a sense of deep nostalgia and emotion in listeners.
Li Jinguang died in Shanghai in 1993 of an illness. In his lifetime, he was known as the “King of Songs,” gaining special recognition for those sung by the Seven Great Singing Stars and other shidaiqu performers, where he integrated Western music and orchestration with jazz and Chinese folk music.