Thai Xuan

Thai Xuan (b. June 16, 1940) is a Vietnamese-American singer, independent music producer, and founder of Diễm Xưa Productions (Trung Tâm Diễm Xưa). She was born in Hanoi, Vietnam under the name Truong Thai. 

Considered one of the great Vietnamese beauties of her time, she was married to the famous singer Anh Ngọc from 1959 to 1964. They had one daughter, Ngọc Trâm, a name created in the romantic imagination of Thai Xuan. It's meaning refers to the precious jade trinkets adorned by Vietnamese royalty.   

Her career began in 1958 when she was a singer for one year with the Central Performing Arts Group, which traveled throughout Vietnam entertaining South Vietnamese troops. This group was a branch of the Phòng 5 Chiến Tranh Tâm Lý thuộc Bộ Tổng Tham Mưu, which loosely translates to Psychological War 5 Division of the Joint General Staff of the Vietnam Army. This division of the army provided radio and television to South Vietnam and cultural performances to soldiers. 

The radio broadcasts included the New Music of Vietnam (Tân nhạc Việt Nam), which was a modern form of music that borrowed elements of music from the west and applied them to Vietnamese vocal, instrumental, chamber, and folk. This new wave and thinking of Vietnamese music was influenced by classical music and contemporary French music. Although the music artists of this movement experimented with a new sound, they still respected and performed traditional Vietnamese songs. Tân nhạc Việt Nam was all the rage among trendy young people at the time.

From 1959 to 1966, she was a stage singer in trendy Saigon dance clubs, known as tea rooms. 

Between 1966 and 1975, Thai Xuan lived in Tokyo, Japan with her daughter and American husband, an airline captain for World Airways. She and her daughter were among a small handful of Vietnamese residing in Japan at that time. 

The humanitarian side of Thai Xuan emerged when she requested and was granted the opportunity to organize and coordinate rescue airlifts out of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in April 1975, a mission that helped hundreds of Vietnamese escape during the Fall of Saigon. These early refugees were first flown to refugee reception camps in The Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Honolulu before moving on to start a new life and settle in with their respective sponsor families in the U.S., as well as some European countries. The states which welcomed the largest numbers of Vietnamese refugees were California, Texas, Washington, Florida, and Virginia,.    

After the Fall of Saigon, Thai Xuan and her family moved from Tokyo to the Bay Area, where they lived for five years between 1975 and 1980. In 1980, they moved to Southern California, where Thai Xuan has called home ever since. 

When she turned her focus towards producing music in 1985, she had a vision of elevating Vietnamese pop music to a higher art form by bringing euro classical strings and arrangements to songs. Her approach was innovative. She was ahead of her time. Few people understood what she was trying to do when she set out to fulfill her vision. She found support and allies among some Vietnamese-American musicians with euro classical music training, such as Phạm Ngọc Sơn, who was an early stage co-founder of Diễm Xưa Productions, and Duy Cường, who composed and arranged music with her on her earliest projects. Phạm Ngọc Sơn left after the first few projects. 

In 1985, she released her first CD, which featured a variety of singers. Her second CD, which was released shortly thereafter, featured the highly acclaimed Khanh Ly. Both CDs were smash hits. Until then, no one had heard Vietnamese pop music with that level of quality or that unique arrangement with strings before. Those first enterprises were followed by more CDs of famous singers, such as Anh Ngọc, Sĩ Phú, Khánh Hà, Tuan Ngoc, Thái Hiền, Lệ Thu, Duy Trác, Mai Hương, Julie Quang, and Thanh Lan. Eventually, Thai Xuan started discovering and producing new talent. Her greatest successes can be attributed to launching the careers of three of the top Vietnamese-American singers of their generation, Ý Lan, Vũ Khanh, and Thanh Ha, as well as many other talented singers, such as Hoang Nam, Ky Anh, La Suong Suong, Kevin Khoa, and Ngoc Hue. She also received the prestigious exclusive rights to record and produce the legendary Thái Thanh, who was considered a cultural treasure among the Vietnamese.     

She was one of the first female Vietnamese-American producers to give popular Vietnamese music a high quality treatment with classical strings. She chose the independent path in order to maintain quality control over every aspect of the production and to create a distinctive sound that was undeniably Diễm Xưa Productions. She ran every aspect of the business, from recording to sales, shipping, and distribution, with the help of her daughter and an assistant. It was a high energy labor of love she operated out of her home studio and garage in Orange County's Little Saigon. 

She pushed the boundaries of artistic expression in popular Vietnamese music, while remaining completely in charge of every aspect of her career. She is noted for her innovation in song arrangement and music production and her ingenuity for discovering and launching the careers of talented Vietnamese-American singers. 

Her music has been called romantic, passionate, big, and meaningful. Her CDs were sold internationally. For twenty-two years, she grew Diễm Xưa Productions to become one of the preeminent Vietnamese music labels in the world, starting with her first CD in 1985 through her retirement in 2007. 

In 2007, health issues arose and prevented her from further music production work. By then, she had established a powerful, recognizable label and a devoted following of Vietnamese music fans. However, the woman behind the label was virtually unknown outside of her wide circle of family, friends, and colleagues, until recently. For her 75th birthday on June 16, 2015 and the 30th anniversary of her first CD, Thế Giới Nghệ Sĩ (Artist World Magazine) featured a full issue tribute to her. For her 80th birthday on June 16, 2020, she was the featured guest on The Jimmy Show.  

Thai Xuan cultivated and maintained a unique sound throughout her career, a sound that became her signature style which no one could copy. It earned her accolades and high regard in the Vietnamese music industry. The respected Vietnamese poet, Du Tử Lê, dubbed her the New Vietnamese Music Ambassador. Her vision was successful. 

What was life like with one of the most unique Vietnamese-American women of her time? A biography about growing up by the side of the inimitable Thai Xuan – the maverick vocal performer, bon viveur, music producer, and rescue mission organizer – is currently being written by her daughter. The biography covers Thai Xuan's voyage from Saigon to Tokyo to the Fall of Saigon to the San Francisco Bay Area and to Southern California, taking place in the years between 1940 and 1976. 

Original text created on June 16, 2020.

Last updated on October 7, 2024.