LOBING SAMSON: 1913-2009
A musician from the Philippines who fled Shanghai after the Communists took over China and worked as one of a few big-band leaders in Hong Kong for 23 years as the "King of the Clarinet" has died, at age 95.
Lobing Samson, also known as the Benny Goodman of China, eventually retired to B.C., where his children for years performed as the popular Top 40 group D'Topnotes. He died in Richmond on Feb. 4.
Samson was born in the Philippines on July 1, 1913, the only son of Maximo Samson, who travelled around the Philippines working for a gambling syndicate, and his wife, Pacunda, a singer who gave up her career to raise Lobing and his two sisters.
In his family memoirs, Samson recalled he only saw his father when he travelled to their hometown on business, once returning with a new saxophone as a gift for his musically inclined son.
Lobing moved in his 20s to the cosmopolitan Shanghai, then known as the Paris of the Orient, and became band leader at Ciro's Nightclub, a popular student hangout during the 1940s.
On his clarinet, he led Lobing's Band, which included three saxophonists, two trumpeters, one piano, bass and guitar players, a drummer and various Chinese singers. His theme song was Benny Goodman's "Begin the Beguine."
Ciro's continued to thrive despite the Japanese occupation of China in the late 1930s, and Lobing and his band continued playing throughout the Second World War.
It was at Ciro's that the dashing Lobing was introduced to the beautiful Chinese-Spanish Isabel Thu, who was from a well-connected family with coal-mining interests. The Thus fled to Shanghai from Hankow after the Japanese took over the city in 1938 and were forcing young Chinese women into prostitution, according to Isabel's memoirs.
Lobing and Isabel married at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Shanghai on Aug. 26, 1946, and remained together for 53 years until Isabel was killed in a car crash in Richmond nine years ago, which Lobing survived.
In Shanghai, the couple used Lobing's year's salary -- two gold bars -- to buy an apartment. A year later, they sold it for nine gold bars, bought another suite in the building for four gold bars and had the first of their nine children.
After the Communist takeover in late 1949 Lobing left to take a job at a Hong Kong ballroom. The following spring, Isabel, her three children, a servant and two nannies took a train to a town near the Hong Kong border, where thousands of Chinese were trying to leave.
Lobing's boss told her to wait for a letter he would send because "not even Cantonese people" were getting into Hong Kong, according to Isabel's memoirs. She tried another border crossing, armed with a copy of Lobing's work contract, and pleaded with the policeman there on behalf of her three babies. She recalled how they all burst into tears when they stepped onto Hong Kong soil.
Before long, Lobing, now the father of five, took a job at the Luna Park nightclub, which included a Disneyland-like amusement park.
"Uncle" Ray Cordeiro, 84, who's been a DJ in Hong Kong for 58 years, recalls going to listen to Lobing's Band when he was young and remembers a vibrant musical scene.
"Most of the people from Shanghai came over and started to make Hong Kong the centre of live music that Shanghai used to be," he said in an interview from Hong Kong after his late-night radio show.
There was no Cantonese pop music from the 1950s to the 1970s, so young people listened to American Big Band and later groups like the Beatles, he said.
"I think his death is an end of an era," said Cordeiro. "There are no more big band leaders [from Hong Kong] left."
He recalled Lobing as devoted to his young family.
His eldest son, Michael Samson of Vancouver, remembers his dad writing music all day before leaving for his job at 8 p.m. and working until 3 a.m.
"He didn't have too much stress in his life," he said.
"He just played music."
Lobing officially retired at 60, but when Michael and most of his other siblings formed a family band in the 1960s called D'Topnotes and spent 1973 playing in Mexican resort towns, Lobing and Isabel went with them and Lobing would join them as a guest artist on clarinet.
D'Topnotes were eventually invited to play in Vancouver and established themselves as a popular local top-40 band during the 1970s and '80s. They also performed on TV and radio and cut a number of record deals before breaking up in 1987, when three sisters formed the Samson Sisters Trio.
In 2003, Michael opened the Stars on Broadway live music venue in Vancouver and up until it closed more than two years ago, Lobing would come in on Friday nights to play clarinet and flute, when he was in his 90s.
His granddaughter, Vanessa Davidson, remembers her grandfather as always cheerful, quiet, easygoing, accepting of others and possessed of a great sense of humour.
"Grandpa was an education in the best parts of a human being: Faithful, steady, loyal, a real gentleman, a man committed to God," she said. He also leaves 19 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
slazaruk@theprovince.com
