Park Gwang-su, singer of ‘Beautiful Rivers and Mountains,’ dies

Park Gwang-su, who sang the original song of ‘Beautiful Rivers and Mountains,’ died Saturday. He was 82.

Born in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, he performed nicely soul, R&B and blues songs, which were new to Korea at the time, at clubs in the U.S. Eighth Army and other places. He joined as lead vocal the rock band ‘The Men’ formed in 1972 by legendary singer songwriter Shin Jung-hyeon, and sang the original song of ‘Beautiful Rivers and Mountains.’ In 1973, he released his solo album ‘Dried Leaf / Woman in Rain,’ which were sanctioned and banned from broadcasting by the authority.

He released a solo album in 2007 for the first time in 34 years, and participated in an album for rapper P Type in 2008 to continue his music career. “Park was a stylist who made contributions to broadening the horizon of Korean pop music,” said Kim Hak-seon, a popular music commentator.


imi@donga.com