Park In-soo, Korea's first soul singer, remembered one year after his death

August 18 marks one year since Park In-soo (박인수) died of pneumonia at a Seoul university hospital. He was 78.

Born in 1947 in Kiljoo, North Pyongan Province, Park was adopted at age 12 by an American missionary. He encountered soul music in Harlem, New York—the foundation for everything that followed. In the late 1960s he joined Questions (퀘션스) as a guest vocalist, the group led by Shin Joong-hyun. His breakthrough came in 1970 with Bom Bi (봄비), written and composed by Shin Joong-hyun. He released Napal Baji, Funk Broadway, Uisim Badneun Sarang, Kkot-gwa Nabi, and Dangshineun Byeoleul Bogo Uleoboasyeonnayo. He earned the title "Korea's first soul singer."

Off-stage, his life was turbulent. A cannabis scandal caught him in the mid-1970s. He divorced his wife that same decade. In 1983 came a dramatic reunion with his mother, separated from him during the Korean War. By 2002 he had undergone pancreatic cancer surgery; fellow singers staged a fundraising concert called Remember Park In-soo to cover his treatment costs.

2012 brought a quiet resurgence. He appeared on KBS 1TV's Ingan Geukjang (인간극장) and revealed he had reunited with his ex-wife after 37 years apart. He held a comeback concert at a jazz club in Mapo-gu, Seoul. His final recorded song was Junbidoen Mannam (준비된 만남), released in December 2013 and created by jazz vocalist and composer Kim Jun (김준).

(More than a decade passed between that last recording and his death—a long silence for a voice that shaped an era of Korean popular music.)