Thái Thanh

Thái Thanh (born Phạm Thị Băng Thanh; August 5, 1934 – March 17, 2020) was a Vietnamese-American singer. She was one of the most iconic singers of the Western-influenced popular music in Vietnam, known as 'New music of Vietnam' .

Early and family life Thái Thanh was born in 1934 in the village of Bạch Mai, Hanoi, in an artistic-traditioned family. Her father, Phạm Đình Phụng, had 2 wives - the first one gave birth to Phạm Đình Sỹ and Phạm Đình Viêm; the second one gave birth to Phạm Thị Quang Thái (Thái Hằng), Phạm Đình Chương, and Phạm Thị Băng Thanh.

Thái Thanh started her career before the First Indochina War when she was 14 years old, without any formal music education. She learned about singing from her informal knowledge of northern Vietnamese folk songs and French music books, which she later fused in her performances.

During the early 1970s, she and Thăng Long band regularly performed at the Đêm màu hồng (Pink Night) nightclub.

After 1975, Thái Thanh was banned from performing publicly due to her refusal to cooperate with the communist government of Vietnam. In 1985, she emigrated and became part of the Vietnamese musical diaspora in Orange County, California.

Thái Thanh continued her music career amongst the Vietnamese community in the United States and Canada. In 2000, she suffered a brain haemorrhage, and announced her retirement in 2002, after 55 years of contribution to the music industry and pop culture of Vietnam throughout the 20th century. However, she did continue to appear on the music scene sporadically.

In 2005, an event named "Vinh danh Thái Thanh, tiếng hát vượt thời gian" (In honor of Thái Thanh, the timeless singer) was held in Montreal, Canada. The event was participated by Thái Thanh and many other famous singers of the next generation - including Tuấn Ngọc, Ý Lan, Trần Thu Hà, etc. In 2006, she returned in the event "Thái Thanh và ba thế hệ" (Thái Thanh - three generations). In 2017, according to her eldest daughter Ý Lan, she had been in very poor health. According to the government-run newspaper Tuoi Tre, her voice was the most archetypal of Tân nhạc, and that she was 'a voice that spanned generations'. It described her death as a 'great loss' for Vietnamese music.