In the early of the 1990s when the wave of overseas music flocked to Vietnam, Trinh Cong Son and his friends established group “Friends”, aiming to orient the local music market by new romantic and vital songs.

Seven members of The Friends, Trinh Cong Son is on the first row, the third from the left.

The “Friends” was formed on March 8 1991 with seven famous songwriters: Trinh Cong Son, Ton That Lap, Tran Long AN, Tu Huy, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, Nguyen Van Hien and Thanh Tung.

The group members grew up in during the war and they were close friends since the 1980s. They were the pioneers in the young music movement after Vietnam’s unification. Their songs were mainly in pop and rock genres and they were about love and love for the country. These songs brought a new wind to the market music at that time. The most famous songs among them that are still favored by the today’s audience include Trinh Cong Son’s Twenty Seasons of Sunlight and Where Waves Go, Ton That Lap’s Rainfall and Forever Love, Tran Long An’s Congratulation to Mother’s Birthday and I Would Like to Be a Troubadour, Thanh Tung’s Sing with Baby Tick and Drop of Sunlight on Veranda, Tu Huy’s The Day You Come and My Hometown – My Childhood, Nguyen Ngoc Thien’s Fire in My Heart and Please Go and Nguyen Van Hien’s When I Was a Child and A Time to Remember.

Members of The Friends were friends and colleagues. They met once a month to report the group songs they wrote in a month. They had their own albums and shared five albums.

Ten years after the group was set up, Trinh Cong Son passed away on April 1 2001. Over five years later, Tu Huy also passed away.

At present, except for Thanh Tung who is in convalescence, the four remaining songwriters in The Friends are pillars in Vietnam’s music circles. Ton That Lap is Vice Chair of the Art Council of the Vietnamese Musicians’ Association cum Chair of the HCM City Music Association’s Art Council. Tran Long An is the Vice Chair of the Vietnamese Musicians’ Association cum Chair of the HCM City Music Association. Nguyen Ngoc Thien is a member of the Vietnamese Musicians’ Association Executive Board and Vice Chair of the HCM City Music Association. Nguyen Van Hien is a member of the Vietnamese Musicians’ Association Executive Board and Vice Chair of the HCM City Music Association.

A special music show will be held on March 13 at Lan Anh Theatre in HCM City to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of The Friends.

The show will have the participation of famous singers like Anh Tuyet, Quang Linh, Dam Vinh Hung, Tan Minh, Thanh Thuy, My Le, Thanh Thao, Thu Minh, etc.

The show will be also aired live on VTV3.

Trinh Cong Son (February 28, 1939 – April 1, 2001) was a Vietnamese composer, musician, painter and songwriter. He, along with Pham Duy and Van Cao, is widely considered one of the three most salient figures of modern Vietnamese music.

Trinh Cong Son wrote over 500 songs, and, during the 1960s and 1970s, Joan Baez dubbed him the Bob Dylan of Vietnam for his moving antiwar songs. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at his funeral in HCM City, for a spontaneous ad hoc funeral concert, making such a spectacle the largest in Vietnamese history. His music remains very popular among both old and young Vietnamese.

PV