Agnes Chan (Known as 陳美齡; Chan Meiling in Chinese speaking countries) (born 20 August 1955) is a famous pop singer from the early 1970s born in August 20, 1955 in Hong Kong. The Other Wiki states that she's also a television personality, a Doctor of Education, a professor at Japanese universities, an essayist, and a novelist.
Agnes Chan began singing and playing guitar in her junior high years in Hong Kong, as volunteer work for fundraising events. Her cover version of Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game" which was recorded along with her actress sister Irene Chan was a hit in Hong Kong. When she was bought to Japan in 1972 by a Japanese music producer, she became famous after debuting her single "Hinageshi no Hana", due to her looks, voice, and noticeably imperfect Japanese.
She covered several English songs as well, many of them as past decade classics or recent releases by famous artists at the time. Mostly Folk. Of course, she also sang in her native Cantonese, and in addition, Mandarin and released a few albums in this language. Many of her singles and latest releases are Japanese.
Besides being a singer, Agnes Chan is an accomplished writer as well, with most of her books being about raising children — which is mostly based on Agnes' experience raising three sons as a celebrity mother.
The following tropes include:
- The '70s: Her debut and peak of popularity happened mostly in this decade.
- Bilingual Bonus: She's able to sing in three languages. Also when it came to Chinese, where she sang both Mandarin and Cantonese.
- Concept Album: Agnes in Wonderland (1979) which is pretty much a re-imagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland featuring 1970s pop music-style arrangements and starring Agnes instead of Alice.
- Cover Album: Will the Circle Game be Unbroken (1971) and Agnes Chan (1976)
- Cover Version: Many. Most are English songs, as mentioned.
- Her first hit is this, which is a Joni Mitchell song.
- She's also done Mandarin/Cantonese covers of her Japanese songs as well.
- Cute Little Fangs: Cute Little Fang, is more like it. She has just one little tooth protruding from her mouth whenever she does her toothy grin.
- Idol Singer: A quintessential one from the 70s.
- Older Than They Look: Even as she became an adult somewhere before the year 2000, she looked like she's still 17. Her voice changed though, as time went on.
- Silly Love Songs: Many of her songs, as usually expected of Idol Singers.
- Teen Idol: Agnes became this when she debuted in Japan with the song Hinageshi no Hana when she was just 17 years old.
- Translated Cover Version:
- She covered Dolly Parton's "Jolene" in Cantonese.
- The Dear Agnes - Carpenters collection that covered Carpenter songs in Japanese.
- As mentioned above in Cover Version, it's not uncommon for Agnes to sing Mandarin or Cantonese versions of her Japanese songs.
