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The Young Men - Hong Kong's Answer to CSNY (1969 - 1973)

The Young Men was a late 60’s and early 70’s acclaimed, but short lived, folk rock group in Hong Kong. The original group consisted of Stephen Lam (vocals, guitars, harmonicas), Ralph Wong (vocals, guitars, harmonicas), and Carl Wu (vocals, guitars, keyboards).

Stephen Lam was a, classically trained, troubadour solo artist, covering Simon & Garfunkel, Beatles, & Crosby, Stills & Nash songs. Stephen did a lot of school concerts and had won in 2nd place in the Hong Kong School Music Contest in 1968. He was the chairman of Art & Music Clubs in Ying Wa College and had rehearsed in the school band with Samuel Hui, lead vocalist for the Hong Kong band, The Lotus. Stephen also sang at a few bars on Hankow Road in the famous Tsim Sha Tsui district in Hong Kong.

Ralph and Carl were in a local pop band with a couple of female vocalist doing Bee Gees & Brazil 66’s tunes. Ralph also started out as a solo artist singing Bob Dylan's and Bird's tunes. Carl was a classically trained musician turned rock & roll when he met Ralph in high school.

The three of them met in an annual school concert at Hip Yun College in 1969. During intermissions, Stephen was chilling in the school yard and Ralph & Carl came over to say hello and offered Stephen a smoke. That was when The CRS (pre - Young Men), the folk rock group was born.

For the next few months, they jammed and practiced dozens of CSNY (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, & the Everly Brothers songs at Ralph’s apartment. Slowly they started to expose themselves to the Hong Kong music scene and gigged at multiple variety concerts in various schools and functions. They were famous in their band uniforms of camouflaged army shirts and “Apple” blue jeans. With their 3 part harmonies, they were featured in a Hong Kong Standard article, stating that they were the Hong Kong’s answer to CSNY.

Every year in the 1970’s, Hong Kong always had the annual Hong Kong Music Contest. In 1971, Stephen’s friend, Chan Young Man joined the contest, but The CRS did not. On the day of the first round of eliminations, at the Hong Kong Scout Club, The CRS was in the audience just checking out the new artists/contestants. When the announcer called “Chan Young Man”, nobody responded after a couple of calls. On the third call, Stephen said to Ralph & Carl, “Hey, let’s pretended that we are Chan Young Man and try it out. It does not hurt if we are not picked, ‘cos it will be Chan Young Man, not The CRS.”. Ralph and Carl nodded and they went up the stage with their guitars, pretending to be Chan Young Man. History was made at that time. They covered “Teach Your Children”, a song by CSNY. They won the preliminary, the semi-final and then they were at the Hong KongTVB Television Station for the final. By that time, they had changed the name of the group from The CRS to The Young Men, matching (the given name of Chan Young Man). Ivan Ho Sau Shun was the MC and he announced that The Young Man won the Folk Rock section of the contest and The Young Man will be performing at the Hong Kong Queen’s Square, the next day, for the grand finale.

The Young Men performed one of their best and won 2nd place in the 1971 Hong Kong Music Contest and they were awarded a 6 months contract to perform weekly on Enjoy Yourself Tonight (an equivalent to Saturday Night Live), a popular nightly variety show on Hong Kong TVB station. They were also awarded $1500 dollars and they went to the one and only Tom Lee Music Store and bought 3 Yamaha FG180 guitars.

From that point on The Young Men performed in many Hong Kong concerts, including the famous Hong Kong Jockey Club. They continued to perform under the sponsorship of the HKTVB producer, Choy Woh Ping.

One song that they performed got The Young Man in a situation. The song was “Younger Generation”, written by John Sebastian. It was the first time that the drug “LSD” was sung in any song in Hong Kong before the Young Man’s performance.

It was October, 1971, Stephen, who always wanted to study in the USA, told the other Young Men that he will be leaving for the US for university. He left for Houston, Texas in January 1972.

The Young Man, with Ralph and Carl, continued to perform after Stephen left. But, it was not the same without Stephen. They recruited other musicians, but the chemistry and 3 part harmonies was not there anymore. In 1973, Carl also left for the USA for university in Illinois. Even though Ralph continued to perform as a solo artist, The Young Men was officially no more.

'Any news about this Hong Kong group, after 1973 is more than welcomed. '

Stephen Lam graduated college in 1976, married, had 3 children and continued to play music in Houston. In the 70's, he was bass player in the Pete Martinez Band. He then played Lead guitar in Diana Dee and the Different Shades which had a minor local hit written by Stpehn called "I Can't beleive". Then Stephen branched out in to Jazz in a Modern New Wave Insturmental Duo with Clarence Wong. He stopped playing in the 90's to spenf them with his family. In the late 90's & early 2000's, Stephen was bass player with The Powerline, which won the best 2002 classic rock group title in SE Texas. Then a Folk Rock duo called NightWish with Linda Chartier. He is still active with his band NightWish, gigging once in while.