Rowena Cortes on her life, and working with Elton John and Leslie Cheung

ROWENA? I think it’s an English name; there’s supposed to have been a Queen Rowena in English history. My parents came on a boat from the Philippines in 1947. My mother was five months pregnant at the time, with my second brother. So you can imagine how hard it was for her. My dad was a jazz musician, Avelino Cortes, an alto sax player. He was the musical director at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for many years. He also did studio recordings for Diamond Records. He had a band with four of my brothers – Los Cortesos. I come from a musical family; I have five brothers and three sisters. When I was maybe two or three years old, my mum says I would hold her brush in my hand and just sing my heart out.

WE LIVED in North Point. It was a very Chinese community. That’s why my spoken Cantonese is so good. Most of my friends at St Paul’s Convent School spoke Cantonese. I can’t read or write Chinese. Because I didn’t have a Chinese name, they placed me in a French class. So, when I started singing in Cantonese, I had a hard time because I had to do the Cantonese pinyin – I had to write it phonetically and it was hard work, learning pronunciation and the nine tones. My first record was when I was five years old, an EP for EMI. I didn’t know what I was singing about; I just memorised the lyrics. It was called “You Can Have Him”. The record came about because I won the Talent Quest competition organised by The Star newspaper, in 1968. It was held on stage at City Hall. I was in with all these adults and when I won first prize Uncle Ray (DJ and broadcaster Ray Cordeiro) had to lift me onto this box. Anders Nelsson was one of the judges. I won a car, I won this whole Revlon make-up case for my mum and a recording contract with EMI. For the competition I sang “Goin’ Out of My Head”. I did a jazz version!