Diamond Records (Hong Kong)

Diamond Records was a record label for Hong Kong and the far East. It featured a good amount of Hong Kong's most popular recording acts and attractions in its catalogue.

Diamond Records was an independent label which was established in or around 1960 by Portuguese merchant, Ren da Silva. In the early 1960s, they produced a run of albums that featured original Mandarin and English compositions. Also English songs were sung in Mandarin and Mandarin songs were sung in English. Two recording artists that were an example of this were Kong Ling and Mona Fong. Both Ling and Fong had Hong Kong's leading pianist Celso Carrillo as arranger on their early Diamond albums.

In the early 1960s, Diamond was the only record pressing in the area at the time. It handled Mercury Record Corporation product on a licensing agreement basis. Taking a trip to the U.S., managing director da Silva visited the Chicago Mercury headquarters in August 1961 to discuss expansion in the area for manufacturing plant and distribution facilities. He also was in the U.S. to meet with Willem Langenberg the head of Philips group to discuss the coordination of a three way arrangement that would involve Mercury, Philips and Diamond.

In the mid-1960s the label started taking on guitar driven bands such as Philip Chan and the Astronotes, Danny Diaz and the Checkmates, Teddy Robin and the Playboys, and The Anders Nelsson group. Later on, other bands such as the Sam Hui fronted Lotus, The Mystics, The Zoundcrackers, D’Topnotes, The Downbeats, Joe Jr. and the Side Effects, Mod East, Sons of Han, and The Menace had recordings issued on the label.

Celso Carrillo, a pianist from the Philippines was born on January 9, 1924. Along with Tony Carpio, Andy Hidalgo, and Nick Domingo, he was one of the many musicians from the Philippines that had made careers in Hong Kong. He had worked as an arranger, backing musician on various recordings by artists on the Diamond label. For a period of time, he was Hong Kong's leading pianist His band backed Kong Ling on her Hong Kong Presents ..... Off-Beat Cha Cha album. In addition to playing piano and handling the arrangements, he also played conga and cow bell on various tracks. Another album for Diamond which he worked on, which was in the same vein as Kong Ling's was Mona Fong Meets Carding Cruz. The backing was by the Carding Cruz band and the arrangements were by Celso Carrillo. Filipino singer Carmen Soriano, credits him with him with giving her the inspiration and training to sing when she was lacking in confidence and repertoire while in Hong Kong. At the time he was the band leader at the club and told her to give it a try just for the novelty of it. The result was her singing for a few months at the Winner House club in Hong Kong. Another singer that Carillo backed was Lita Mendoza. He died on 26 December 1988.

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