Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 5, 2015.

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When we arrived at the YogaOneThatIWant studio in Saville Melawati, Atilia Haron was already there waiting and prepared. live it! paid a visit to the singer-songwriter to chat about her upcoming two-night live gig at Alexis Ampang with her mother, famed 70s songstress Salamiah Hassan. The two decided to perform together again after their last show at the bistro played to a sold-out crowd.

“My mum is a joker on stage; it’s going to be fun. I’m more reserved and I get nervous. But she says what’s in her mind all the time and plays the fool; you’ll get a lot of my childhood stories. My mum embarrasses me all the time,” added Atilia, smiling resignedly.

For any other performer to share the stage with Salamiah would be daunting enough, as her diminutive stature belying a powerful voice and larger-than-life presence. But for her daughter, it has taken years and a lot of hard work to be completely at ease with being labelled Salamiah’s daughter.

It’s a given that she used to hate it when people compared her vocally with her mother. “My brother would to tell me, ‘you sound like mum’ … or when I did jingles and they told me to ‘sing like your mum’, or ‘can you be more powerful like your mum?’” recounted the equally petite singer.

“Now I don’t care anymore. That’s how life is,” she went on, “you will be like your mum one day, sooner or later”, adding that: “As a single mother, she is so strong. She only used singing to take care of us, nothing else. I respect that because she’s so disciplined and her focus was just her kids. I’m thankful for that.”

Beyond the youthful, exotic looks and voices that a fan once described as gold and silk respectively, the mother and daughter have walked different paths. With two albums under her belt and a third one coming soon, as well as her recent role of yoga entrepreneur and teacher with seven yoga studios opened around the Klang Valley, Atilia always trudged her own way, for good or for bad.

“I started very, very late. I released my first album only in my late twenties,” said Atilia of her debut album Sangkar (2007). Apart from odd TV commercials and jingles while growing up, Salamiah did not let her daughter sing professionally and instead, sent her off to university. “I started as a production assistant earning RM500 a month, sweeping the drain and picking up cigarette butts,” Atilia recalled.

“Then I worked in an audio production house for 10 years. I was earning quite well, bought a house and had my own car. But I made a decision to stop working and concentrate on music. It was very, very hard to choose,” she added. “Yet in a way, it was like ‘I’ve done what you asked me to do ... but this is what you do; this is what my grandmother used to do — it’s in my blood’.”

Nevertheless, she credited her mother for letting her walk the journey on her own, be it in her career path or her more soulful, jazzy style of music. “She’s the type of mother that will never say ‘I told you so’. She will wait until I come to her. She knew I had problems, but she also knows what kind of girl I am,” quipped Atilia.  

And rather than making Salamiah the goal, the daughter is using the 64-year-old veteran’s long career as a reference. “She had always prepared me — with piano lessons, education, always telling me to buy my own house and to be prepared for anything in life,” Atilia expressed, candid that her broken family background had a part to play.

There is a price to pay for striking one’s own path, said Atilia. “I wouldn’t say my career is strong in terms of fans and listeners — my music is not commercial enough and don’t get played often on radio. People tell me I’m not glamorous enough, but I know what I want. I don’t mind if I only have three albums, as long as I write the songs, produce them and I’m happy with them — that’s what I want.”

She admitted she’d be happy packing up her bags and venturing abroad if she is still young, but is content in growing her career here and in Indonesia, where fans have been particularly receptive to her brand of music. “That’s why I love gigs like Alexis, where I get to sing more of my own songs with a live band. And singing with my mother ... it feels awesome. A lot of people don’t get that chance,” she said humbly.

Taking one 45-minute set each, Atilia said there will be songs from the 70s, golden-era ballads and a duet or two, including Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer’s Enough Is Enough.

As we concluded our chat, the inevitable question arose: What’s the best advice her mother ever gave her? The answer was rather unexpected: “Never be late. It’s very simple but it affects a lot of things. It’s about respect, respect for people’s work [and] for people’s money. This is something very Atilia and it’s very much my mum.”


Atilia Haron and Salamiah Hassan will be performing at Alexis Ampang, Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur on Friday and Saturday from 10pm. There will be a cover charge of RM25. For reservations, call (03) 4260 2288.

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