The "small red house" is a symbolic structure that witnessed the vicissitude of China's recording industry.(Zhang Xuefei)
In one of the greenest part of Xujiahui stands an old red villa that was once the cradle of Chinese musical history. Nicknamed "Xiao Hong Lou" (small red house), the villa on Hengshan Road was the headquarters of the recording company, EMI (Electric & Musical Industries Ltd), in China.
"The 'small red house' was a symbolic structure of the Chinese recording industry. Music was created here and continued to bloom here for more than half a century," says Chen Jianping, former editor-in-chief of China Records Shanghai Company, which took over EMI in 1949.
"A galaxy of stars recorded their songs here since the EMI era, such as 'Golden Voice' Zhou Xuan and Spanish singer Julio Iglesias. It was also here that the Chinese national anthem 'March of the Volunteers' was recorded, as was the internationally famous 1940 Mandarin song 'Rose, Rose I Love You.' The English version of this song was sung by American singer Frankie Laine in 1951," says Chen.
Chen, who has been researching materials on EMI and China Records over the past five years, discovered that EMI had owned the 4,000-square-meter land in Xujiahui since 1919. Buildings started coming up around the 1920s and 1930s.
EMI held considerable influence in China's record and gramophone industry. The company entered the Chinese market in 1908 and became the first and biggest music recording company in China before 1949.
The company produced records of famous Peking Opera singers and sold them with the "Rooster" logo. However in 1934, the Paris-based EMI went bankrupt and a British company took over its Shanghai branch.
In 1952, the state-owned China Records moved in.
"I remember the red villa had a round shade and a big tree in front of it. The wooden floor was not well maintained but it was still in good shape," says Chen.
"The roof and the outer walls looked like a typical British residential house in the late 19th century," says Tongji University Professor Liu Gang, an expert on architectural history of the former French concession. "This Neoclassical-style building also contains some French and Belgium elements."
Chen says the first floor used to be a meeting room, drama-editing room and the office of the art editor.
The president's office and publishing department were on the second floor while the music editors worked on the top floor.
The golden era for Chinese records was in the late 1980s when "The Red Sun," a collection of popular songs praising Chairman Mao Zedong during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) was produced here. The album sold a record 7 million copies nationwide.