BEIJING (AP) — George Michael's death brought back memories in China of the heady 1980s when Wham! was the first major Western band to play in the country after the death of Mao Zedong and decades of cultural isolation.
Wham!'s manager Simon Napier-Bell had spent 18 months persuading the Chinese government to let them in and secure their place as one of the world's biggest bands by telling them it would help them attract foreign investment.
The Wham! concert influenced Chinese musicians, who had never seen electric guitars played on stage and began to get interested in rock 'n' roll.
"In the early 1980s, pop songs from Hong Kong were very popular in mainland China and after the concert college students and people in the music industry started to get interested in rock 'n' roll," she said.
