Dominic Wong - Folk Singer

After 4 years of searching through tonnes of music to find out what kind of singer I am, I have finally found it.

I grew up listening to Bon Jovi (thanks to my brother) and I absolutely love all of his songs be they 80's ROCK or the typical Bon Jovi love ballads. After all, they don't call JBJ the king of rock ballads for nothing. So naturally, I entered the music world telling people that I am a rocker. So it's love songs and ROCK. But then they gave me a band, leather pants, shades and a microphone and told me to rock everyone's socks off. I couldn't. I had neither the stage presence of a rock star nor the voice of JBJ.. heck I didn't even have the sexy slur of W.A.R.

So this year, when I started exploring Folk, it was the best forray ever. It was only then that I realised that I have always been in love with Simon and Garfunkel. The simplicity of the orchestration (maybe not Bridge Over Troubled Waters), the way their voices blended so sweetly, the guitar being plucked. Then there was Suzanne Vega. The powerful lyrics that she writes and the raw quality of her voice accompanied by the guitar which she plucks so well just took my breath away. Bob Dylan, though I've known of him (who doesn't), suddenly seemed like a huge inspiration not only because his songs were so filled with meaning but because his attitude has never changed. While Simon & Garfunkel split up and came back to gether and then split up over the past 4o years, Dylan has just been Dylan - grumpy, foul-mouthed and resentful of journalists.

Of course this opens up a fresh can of worms because I don't write lyrics like Dylan or Suzanne Vega. I don't churn out melodies as sweet as those of Simon & Garfunkel. What I do know is that Folk music originally referred to traditional songs (House Of The Rising Sun etc), most of which don't even belong to anyone. Dylan changed that. Dylan applied present day concerns to traditional songs.. to traditional form. That is the singer that I want to become.

I am still very much a person in love. I love soap operas, love stories, teenage dramas. But at the other end of the spectrum, the study of law has made me become a person who simply cannot bear to turn my back on what should be.

So Dominic Wong will continue to write love songs. But he is slowly trying to recognize the wind around him and what is blowing in it.