For today's teenagers and twentysomethings, songs from the 1980s may sound outdated. But for people who spent their young adult years in the era of big hair, heavy metal, and ripped jeans, those songs could mean more than music.

It is especially so for singer Zhao Yiran, who is going to hold a concert featuring songs from the 1980s on Saturday night at the South Gate Space (Nanmen Kongjian) in Beijing.

"It seems that I never left the 1980s," said 42-year-old Zhao, who is nicknamed "Laoda" or "big brother." "For me, the 1980s was a time of innocence, hope and struggle."

That is the reason why Zhao named his 2001 live album Living in 1988. In that CD, he strummed a guitar to sing some of his favorite old songs, such as Teresa Teng's The Moon Speaks for My Heart, Jonathan Lee's Can't Bear The Loneliness, Julie Su's Following the Sense and Michelle Pan's Am I Your Most Beloved Person.

Though only one song called White Temple in the album was Zhao's original, his renditions of those once very popular songs attracted quite many fans. It was not only about nostalgia. When Zhao sang those songs, he was not just covering old hits but singing about himself and his unconventional life.

In 1988, Zhao was 25 years old, and everything was good then. Though he did not become a teacher like most of his classmates from the Chemistry Department of Shaanxi Normal University, he was enjoying every day of his life playing music.

At that time, Zhao was a drummer at dance halls in his hometown Yinchuan, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Dance halls were such popular venues in the 1980s that there were often 1,000 to 2,000 people dancing to Zhao's beats at the same time. Zhao soon earned the nickname "king of the drum."

After Zhao played those popular songs and heard singers sing them hundreds or thousands of times, they were planted in his head forever. Ten years later, when he tried to sing and play them on a guitar, they came naturally from his memory, and he never needed to check the melodies and lyrics with the original scores or recordings.

That was in 1998, when Zhao was living in a quiet courtyard on the outskirts of Beijing. He just quit heroin, which he became addicted to since 1993.

"It was the most peaceful period of time in that decade of my life," Zhao said. "I often watched the vegetable field outside the door by myself. Then I suddenly wanted to sing."

For the most part of the 1990s, Zhao wandered from one city to another. He made a lot of money by playing drums in east China's Fujian Province, but he had spent them all on heroin. He didn't even have a guitar of his own.

He borrowed a worn guitar from a neighbor, and picked up the songs that he used to sing. One by one, he gave them new lives. He rearranged about 30 songs, but later gave half of them up because he felt some words from these songs were not what he wanted to say.

The rest became his repertory as a singer, though he does not regard himself as such. He tried to make a living by singing in bars, but found he couldn't. "Singing is a personal activity for me," Zhao said. "I can't sing without putting in real feelings like those bar singers. I can't sing in a bar every day and make money by doing that."

Born the son of a traditional opera singer, he once wrote: "I'm like my mother. I sing my songs at the price of my life. She sings traditional opera at the price of her life."

Zhao has a husky voice, and he often sings the wrong lyrics, but he has a power to touch people, with all his happiness and sadness condensed into his songs.

"The 1990s was a time of fast development for the Chinese society, but this part of my life was blank," Zhao said. "I am left behind, and still living in the world of old songs."

Zhao was the drummer for some short-lived rock bands such as "Red Troop" and "Wood Pushing Melon," and recently he played drums in folk rock singer Zhang Chu's group. Though he still wants to be "king of the drum," singing is now the best form for him to express himself.

Besides pop songs from the 1980s, Zhao's repertory also includes some other songs, such as Tibetan folk song On the Golden Mountain of Beijing, and Cycling Sun, released by the rock band "Cold-Blooded Animal" in 2000. But Zhao arranged all these songs with a feel of folk rock from the 1980s, which features a straightforward combination of melodies and rhythms.

Some people believe that Zhao's singing and guitar playing are heavily influenced by the blues. But he said his music didn't have much to do with the blues, though spiritually they may share some similarities.

"Maybe sometimes I cannot be myself in reality, but I'm always real in my songs," he said.

On Saturday's concert, Zhao will sing solo in the first half and perform with other musicians in the second half.

(China Daily December 8, 2005)