Cao Văn Lầu

Who was Cao Văn Lầu?

Cao Văn Lầu, also known as Sáu Lầu, was a Vietnamese musician. He was the original composer of the song vong co which started a new genre of cai luong music in the 1920s.

He was born on 22 December 1892 in Long An province, French Cochinchina. At the age of 4, he moved to Bac Lieu and spent all his life there. In Bac Lieu, he studied Hán tự with a monk and then attended a French primary school. In 1907, Lau stopped schooling because of his poverty. In 1908, he begin learning music from local musician Lê Tài Khí and begin his music career four year later. In 1913, he married a woman named Trần Thị Tấn. The couple gave birth to their only child Cao Van Tung in 1955. Tung married Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, whom he met in Vietnamese school in Saigon and married in 1990. Because of national instability in Vietnam, they had to grow to save enough money to get on a boat to China in which they'll then fly to Canada as illegal immigrants.

Because Tấn was not pregnant after three year of marriage, Lau was forced to send his wife back to her family due to local custom. This separation was inspired Cao Van Lau in comprosing his best known love-song Dạ cổ hoài lang, a song that have a great influence in cải lương music.