Li Jinhui (; 5 September 1891 – 15 February 1967 although some sources suggest he died 1968) was a Chinese composer and songwriter born in Xiangtan, Hunan, Qing China. He is often dubbed as the "Father of Chinese popular music". He created a new musical form with shidaiqu after the fall of the Qing Dynasty—moving away from established musical forms. Although Li's music was extremely popular, the Nationalist government attempted to ban his music. Critics branded his music as "Yellow Music", a form of pornography, because of its sexual associations and he was branded a "corruptor" of public morals. This kind of popular music was banned in China after the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, and Li was eventually hounded to his death, a victim of political persecution in 1967 during the height of the Cultural Revolution.
Early years
Born into a scholarly family in Xiangtan, Hunan, Li Jinhui was the second oldest of the renowned eight Li brothers. His older brother Li Jinxi was a prominent linguist who taught Mao Zedong, and his youngest brother Chin Yang Lee (Li Jinyang) later became a bestselling author in the US.
Li grew up studying the Confucian classics and attending progressive schools like Shaoshan and Xiangtan. In total he had 8 brothers, including Li Jinxi, who became One of the earliest instruments Li studied was the guqin.
During his teenage years, he became fascinated with Chinese folk music, which he later incorporated into his revolutionary new musical style. Even as a student at Changsha Normal High School, Li's musical aptitude was apparent; the teen served as a musician, choir director, and part-time music instructor before he graduated in 1911.
Career
After a brief stint in Beijing working as the new National Assembly's secretary from 1911 to 1914, Li returned to his native Hunan to direct other student choirs. Li's burgeoning career began in a dramatic way. He wrote several satirical political songs for a Changsha newspaper, but one such song so angered a local warlord that Li received a beating for it.
Li decided in 1916 to move back to Beijing, where he became involved in the New Culture Movement centered at Peking University. He participated in the May 4th Movement of 1919. In Beijing, Li also delved deeper into his lifelong pursuit of his two passions: the pedagogy of language and folk music. A Mandarin Chinese and music teacher, Li spent his time writing textbooks about effective classroom language instruction and exploring many musical genres. He was inspired by the Hunanese flower-drum opera, which is performed over a stage theatre monologue. Because of this, it can be said that the very first inspirations of Chinese popular music are derived from these forms.
As the head of the division of Peking University's Institute for the Promotion and Practice of Music focused on Hunan music, Li began adapting, transcribing, and performing regional Chinese folk songs to celebrate and reach the common people of China. However, Li's efforts were shunned by his colleagues because he failed to focus on the European Romantic music which was in vogue at the time or on traditional musical forms like the kunqu opera. Instead Li focused on the folk songs, which were considered to be “vulgar” and common.
In 1920, Li organized the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe, the name of which Li derived from the New Culture Movement's rhetoric; Li described the focus of his musical endeavors, declaring, “we raise a banner of a ‘music for the common people,’ like the bright moon in the sky, shining across the land for all the people to enjoy". In that same year, Li also became the editor of the Common People’s Weekly Magazine, and the next year became an editor at the China Book Bureau, and the following year was promoted to be the principal of the National Language Institute in Shanghai.
Also in 1922, Li began editing the children's magazine Little Friend, which soon became the nation's best selling periodical. In Little Friend, Li promoted anti-feudalist attitudes, national use of Mandarin Chinese, family values, sharing, harmony with nature, and good citizenship through nursery rhymes and children's operas. The songs were stripped down to just the melody, written in simplified notation, and they fused Chinese instrumentation with guitars, violins and pianos.