The BLUE DIAMONDS, brothers RUUD and RIEM DE WOLFF, visited Singapore in 1960 to give a concert. They won over many life-long fans among the Singaporeans.

I was too young to go to that concert, but I heard about the two singing brothers, and quickly caught the fever. Especially when Rediffusion, Singapore's local cable radio, would play their records all the time. That fabulous Blue Diamonds harmony!

I did not understand at the time that Ruud and Riem were Indonesians who had migrated to Holland soon after Indonesia gained independence. With the way the brothers looked, and the way they sounded, they looked like the Malays in my own neighbourhood, so for a while I mistakenly thought they were from either Singapore or Malaya.

"Oh Carol" made a permanent impression on me. The rhythmic, bubbly guitar sound was incredibly gripping. A simple yet catchy pop song, it was the boys' Indonesian/Malay accent that made us fans think that we could all sing just like them. And we did, parroting the two brothers all the way, like when they were talking in the middle of the song,

"Oh, Carol, I am but a fool,
Darlin', I luv you, though you treat me cruel;
You hurt me, and you make me cry,
But if you leave me, I will surely die!!!"

"Oh Carol" was the very first Blue Diamonds record that I ever owned. I loved watching that record go around and around on my record-player as I tried reading the record label. It was hypnotizing.

I remember that on my record "Oh Carol" was on the flipside of "Mary's Boy Child," a big Blue Diamonds hit in Singapore that one Christmas in early 1960's. Looking back, I am wondering now if that record was a bootleg record, released by some local record pirate or perhaps even a pirate from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I had to leave all my vinyl records behind when I migrated to America.

The BLUE DIAMONDS CD's are still selling in Singapore today.