Joe Mari Chan’s Enduring Heart Songs
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Jose Mari Chan (Source: Manila Bulletin)
But one Christmas memory stands out. “I was around ten years old. Around midnight, my parents were not yet home from hearing midnight Mass, I was alone in the house listening to the radio and I heard this song ‘Little Christmas Tree’ by Nat King Cole. I must have fallen asleep listening to that song. Somehow, it has become a very large part of my Christmas memories.”
This memory is, preserved in one of his newest compositions, “Christmas Moments,” where he has his grown children singing his own recollections of Christmas -- as a boy of ten and as a young husband and father at 25, as well as their own special Christmas moments growing up with their dad. Joe Mari starts to sing the lyrics: “I remember my Christmas when I was ten, oh, what I would give to be a young boy again.”
Jose Mari Chan and his children (Source: Manila Times)
Then he goes into another memory immortalized in another song, “Christmas Past,” which he wrote, with music by Louie Ocampo.
Joe was a boarder at St. Clemens High School in Iloilo, where every December, the “internos” would be awakened by the ringing of the bells and Christmas hymns played over the sound system of St. Clemens Church nearby. Joe recalls, “Waking up at dawn to the bells and looking out the window I could see a solitary star in the sky. So I put that in the song: ‘The sound of bells at early dawn like music from afar. Soft gentle breeze, the world at peace, a solitary star. Those joyful hymns and warm hellos, memories of the past…’”
Joe is wistful, then he laughs, “I’m a sentimental, romantic fool!” And a child at heart, when it comes to Christmas.
It was 30 years ago when he wrote his first Christmas song, “Christmas in our Hearts,” that his record producer thumbed down for being “too Christian,” with lines like “this season may we never forget the love we have for Jesus.” He tried to convince her that his song was appropriate for the season, but she would not be dissuaded. She told him to write a romantic Christmas song instead, that she was so sure the public would love.
So, in two days, he came up with “A Perfect Christmas,” which was about spending the holidays with a loved one. But when the songs were presented to reporters and DJs at a press conference, they thought “Christmas in Our Hearts” was it. “A Perfect Christmas” only came in second.
And so it has become the song of the season in the Philippines for the past 30 years. On radio and in the malls, it is the first song played and replayed once the “ber” months start to ring in the holidays.
“I never expected it to be the hit that it is,” says Joe. “I never expected it would be enduring, that after 30 years, new generations of music lovers would sing it, that children in schools would be taught to sing it at school programs. It’s a real blessing that God has given me, that something I wrote to glorify the birth of Jesus Christ continues to be loved and sung by people. It is the gift of music. I tell my friends, how you use your talent is your gift back to God.”
A few years ago, Joe realized that the song has had a life of its own when he was invited to perform in Lanao del Norte on the birthday of the governor, Imelda Dimaporo. “If you know anything about Lanao del Norte, you know that it is predominantly Muslim. It was the middle of the year, and I performed in a big gym. I knew that the audience was mostly Muslims from the way they were dressed. I sang hit after hit. After two hours, they asked for more. I sang more hits until I ran out of hits. But they kept asking for more so I sang my lesser hits and still they would not let me go. So, I asked, what would you like me to sing?
“You know what they requested for? ‘Christmas in Our Hearts’! This was in the middle of the year! Fortunately, my sound engineer had the Minus One, so I obliged their request and began to sing. And you know what was touching? The whole gym was singing along with me – ‘…this season may we never forget the love we have for Jesus…’ They were predominantly Muslim, and I was touched by their acceptance of the song. God has blessed me with that. The song has transcended religion.”
“Christmas in Our Hearts” was launched in 1990 in Joe’s first Christmas album with the same title. As of 2017, the album and “Constant Change” were the best-selling record albums in the Philippines, with sales breaching 800,000 copies each, to reach ‘Diamond’ status. Now on its 30th year, the song persists as the Christmas anthem of Filipinos all over the world.
Joe Mari Chan has led a charmed life. He runs a very successful sugar business. He has a wife, Mary Ann Ansaldo, and five children whom he adores. And he has his music. His lyrics are not mere positive feel-good words strung together to give the listener a thrill. He has lived it all.
He entered the entertainment scene over 50 years ago, as a host of Nineteeners, a daily afternoon TV program that showcased the talents of high school and college kids. He also had a garage band with a group of friends from college at the Ateneo where he sang Cliff Richard, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennet songs. He wrote his first original song, “Afterglow,” which he first sang on Nineteeners in 1966 where an independent producer, Sonny Lozano, thought it was good enough to record.
“Afterglow,” his first single, was, says Joe, “a minor hit, but it led to a bigger label with ‘Deep in My Heart.’ Each step led to bigger avenues.”
Ironically, his first composition was about heartache, what happens in the afterglow of love: “We've loved and shared the dawn, and hoped that we'd go on, 'Cause even that dawn had to go…Love has to cry, but need not die, Love has to grow but need not go.”
He was 21. What did he know about the afterglow that people usually experience much later in a relationship? “I watched movies, read books, poetry, listened to a tremendous number of songs. By osmosis, they went into my subconscious, they were like seeds that swept into my unconscious and bore fruit in song.”
“Afterglow” was followed by an endless string of super hits – simple songs of ideal love and gentle longing that have withstood the test of time, easy standards such as: “Beautiful Girl”; “Deep in My Heart”; “Can We Just Stop and Talk a While?”; “Please be Careful with My Heart”; “Constant Change”; etc. Joe Mari’s music filled the airwaves with songs about innocent “milk and cookies” days (as opposed to “scotch and soda, gin and beer”) – sweet, uncomplicated, starry-eyed expressions of love marked by innocence, joy, gratitude. They have become the soundtrack of many a couple’s lives through courtship and marriage and, Joe adds, many high school graduates have used “Constant Change” as their graduation song.
Jose Mari Chan’s Constant Change
Joe says, “Sharing my music gives me gratification, not adulation. People come up to say, this one became our wedding song, or ‘Constant Change’ was our graduation song. I am gratified at how my songs have inspired people. I am a cheerful giver with a grateful heart.”
This is perhaps why, today, still energetic and an optimistic romantic at 75, Joe Mari Chan’s mass appeal continues. At a time when millennials are the market, Joe continues to be a popular endorser of consumer products. And his songs continue to be accessed on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube, the present media by which recording artists earn royalties in the time of pandemic, instead of the CD sales, radio and TV time, and mall music of the past.
Recently, Joe released his latest Christmas album, “Going Home to Christmas,” with 22 new songs co-written with friends such as Pinky Valdez, Ogie Alcasid, and Gryk Ortaleza.
One wonders, however, how his positive, romantic, “angst-less” songs are doing at this time of pandemic, when the economic situation of most people is far from ideal, and there are long lines of displaced persons looking for jobs, begging for food, trying to rebuild their lives. Can hungry and sick victims of Covid-19 and recent typhoons continue to identify with his dreamy songs about perfect love and ideal relationships?
Joe says he still has to write a song about the pandemic and the difficulties people have experienced in 2020, but he promised to give it serious thought. He muses: “This pandemic gives us the opportunity to be Christian. How do I mean by that? I remember the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: ‘Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is despair, let me bring hope.’ Right now there’s an air of uncertainty, bordering almost on despair, and hope is the operative word here. We are Christians so we are hoping for the final resurrection where we will all be with our Lord. But for now, for those of us who have been blessed with sufficiency, this is a golden opportunity to share our blessings and give hope. Kailan pa? (When else?)”
He sounds like he is already writing the song in his head.
“I will put that in a song without sounding too preachy. We need to send the message that the mark of a Christian is to be a cheerful giver with a grateful heart.”
Ever a cheerful giver, under the quarantine, Joe now finds the time to attend to matters that his business and entertainment schedule before the quarantine kept him too busy to attend to. He appreciates having more time to spend with his wife and children, and more time to perform thoughtful gestures for people. He talks about a good friend, a young girl who has never traveled abroad, for whom he compiled three or four CDs of European songs and copied several movies shot in European cities on USB.
““And you know what was touching? The whole gym was singing along with me – ‘…this season may we never forget the love we have for Jesus…’ They were predominantly Muslim, and I was touched by their acceptance of the song.””
“I’m going to send you on a European tour,” he told her, “while actual travel is not possible. First stop, London: ‘Summer Holiday’ with Cliff Richard with a bunch of guys who rented a bus and they went everywhere. Second stop, Copenhagen: ‘Hans Christian Andersen’, starring Danny Kaye. And third stop, Rome: ‘Lovers Must Learn,’ starring Troy Donahue and my crush, Suzanne Pleshette!”
He told his young friend, “Someday, this virus will go back to China where it came from and you’ll be able to travel. But in the meantime, dream away with ‘Non pensare a me’, ‘Aldila’ and ‘Non dimenticar’….”
If it sounds like Joe Mari Chan has an uncommonly happy disposition, he says it is because “I’m happily married to the right person. My wife, Mary Ann, is my best friend, my confidante, my girl, my woman, my friend,” just as he waxed romantic in the song of the same title.
Joe Mari adds that it is a matter of setting priorities. “What’s important to me is family ties. I can see that there are families that are dysfunctional mainly because of money matters. That is so sad, because their father and grandfathers worked very hard to earn money and build something for their foundation and then they fight over it and break relationships. I asked my wife, how do I avoid that? And she tells me, ‘You avoid that by not playing favorites. Make the children feel that you love them equally.’ She’s my anchor in life.”
From his songs, and his stories about home and family full of goodness and light, one wonders, does Joe Mari Chan have a dark side?
He stops to think. “Sometimes negativity enters my life. Whether it’s the ‘evil one’ that tempts me or taunts me, my wife always brings me back to the right path. She makes me a better person.”
He says, “I don’t have a perfect life, but I try to make it the best I can. I don’t want to sound like a priest or a pastor, but this is really true. Every morning, the first thing I do is be grateful, I thank the Good Lord for good health, the gift of life, the gift of this day, the gift of my family, my music, my business. To have a grateful heart is very important. I’m a cheerful giver. I share my blessings.”
Indeed, Joe Mari Chan, through his music, is a gift that keeps on giving.
Paulynn Sicam
Paulynn Sicam is a retired journalist, sometime columnist (for the Philippine Star), and freelance book editor in Manila.
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