[Herald Economy — Reporter Go Seung-hee] From the hallowed ground of folk to the birthplace of the blues, the legends who helped build Korean popular music are coming back. Their names alone evoke the sound of an era.According to the music industry, veteran artists who shaped Korea’s pop golden age will take the stage across May and June. Leading the lineup are Sinchon Blues, Ssaysibong, and Han Young-ae.
Their comebacks are not mere nostalgia acts. After 40 to 50 years of refining their craft, these musicians are staking a claim to a sustained artistic legacy and offering a clear, generational voice in an increasingly fragmented pop market.
Sinchon Blues: closing a 40-year chapter of gayo blues
Sinchon Blues began in a tiny Sinchon club in 1986; this year the band marks its 40th anniversary. The current run of shows kicks off what organizers call the “40+1” project — a deliberate step into a new phase.
The band formed when two stalwarts, Eom In-ho and Lee Jeong-seon, joined forces and planted the distinct sound of gayo blues in a musical landscape that had little precedent for the genre.
Over the years, Sinchon Blues functioned as a proving ground for some of Korean pop’s most prized voices. Artists such as Kim Hyun-sik, Han Young-ae, Lee Eun-mi, and Kang Heo-dal-rim passed through its ranks, earning the group a reputation as a kind of singer’s academy. The intimate theater concerts on the 14th and 15th at Hongdae’s Space Brick aim to revive that legacy. That the band turned a marginal genre into a mainstream emotional language over four decades speaks to the enduring strength of Korean popular music.
A notable addition to the lineup is blues diva Kang Heo-dal-rim. She will perform a duet released late last year with her mentor Eom In-ho, “The Song You Gave Me,” bringing a cross-generational essence of the blues to the stage.
Han Young-ae: still hungry for sound at 50 years
“I want to be a flawed, capricious witch.”
Han Young-ae began in 1976 with the folk group Haebaragi, moved through Sinchon Blues, and emerged as a singular solo voice. Over the past half century she has crossed blues, rock, and electronica, pioneering Korea’s avant-garde and earning the sobriquet “the witch of sound.”
Starting June 13 at the Woori Financial Art Hall in Seoul Olympic Park, Han’s national tour will survey five decades of her music.
She’ll revisit era-defining songs like “Is Anyone There” and “Tuning,” and she’ll boldly rework material by younger K-pop artists — choices that underscore why she’s seen not as a relic but as a contemporary force.
At the center of her 50th-anniversary program is a new song, “SnowRain,” co-written with Kim Tae-won of Buhwal. Kim fulfilled a decade-old promise to give her a composition, praising Han as a true artist.
Speaking with reporters, Han admitted, “I still hunger for singing.” Asked whether she’s ever sung her fill, she laughed and said she has no answer yet. For her, the stage remains salvation, and she keeps probing her identity as a vocalist with relentless intensity.
Ssaysibong: how a single acoustic guitar changed the world
The pioneers of Korean folk — the members of Ssaysibong — are also reuniting. Their shows promise a return to the roots of our popular music.
Figures like Jo Young-nam, Yoon Hyung-ju, Kim Se-hwan, and Song Chang-sik led youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s. They were more than entertainers; through music they championed freedom and romance, becoming icons of their moment.
Their achievement was to introduce original composition and the art of harmony to a scene dominated by translated pop. With a single acoustic guitar and precise vocal arrangements, they reached the public’s heart. In an industry now dazzled by spectacle and amplified sound, their work asks what true musical resonance sounds like.
Ssaysibong’s members plan to bring the same sharp banter and unsullied harmonies to the stage. The two-day concert on the 23rd and 24th will feature five founding members — Jo Young-nam, Yoon Hyung-ju, Kim Se-hwan, Song Chang-sik, and Lee Sang-byeok.
A show official said, “For the first time in Ssaysibong’s history, the five founding members — including official MC Lee Sang-byeok — will share the stage together. It will be a farewell concert by the folk pioneers of the 1960s and ’70s for their fans.”
