David Tao

His father, Tao Dawei (David Tao Sr.) (September 28, 1942 – September 12, 2012), was an actor/singer/composer/TV Host and his mother, Wang Furong (Catherine), a Chinese opera singer.

Tao spent part of his childhood in Hong Kong (something which he shared with his audience during his Soul Power concerts in Hong Kong).

His parents supposedly eloped when his father could not get approval to marry his mother.

Tao had his education in Taiwan from kindergarten to the junior high school level at the Bethany Campus of Morrison Academy in Taipei.

Later, his father decided to pursue his dream of working for Walt Disney, and they moved to Arcadia, California.

There he attended Arcadia High School while David Tao Sr. realized his dream of working as an animator in Disney Burbank.

Tao's parents later returned to Taiwan where his father began his singing career, leaving him to complete his education in the United States.

Left to fend for himself, Tao took on many jobs, including a stint as a civilian employee at the Los Angeles Police Department, without the knowledge of his parents.

He attended the University of California, Irvine first.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

David Tao, born Tao Xuzhong (born 11 July 1969), is a Taiwanese Golden Melody Award-winning singer-songwriter.

He is well known for creating a crossover genre of R&B and hard rock tunes which has now become his signature style and for having popularized R&B in the Mandopop industry.

Tao was born on July 11, 1969, in Hong Kong to parents who were entertainers in Taiwan.

Whilst working as a salesman, Tao was offered a job by Taiwanese producer Wang Chih-ping and went back to Taiwan, initially writing, and later producing songs for many singers before releasing his self-titled album David Tao in 1997.

He has since released four more albums, a live concert recording and a compilation of his best songs.

Tao is a prolific composer and songwriter and has written songs for fellow artists such as A-Mei and S.H.E

In 1997, with the help of Wang and another Taiwanese producer, Jim Lee, Tao released his self-titled first album (David Tao), under an independent label called Shock Records, set up by Taiwanese pop singer Jin Ruei-yao, and her husband.

This album set a record in Taiwan during the 9th Golden Melody Awards as the first album from a new singer ever to be nominated for a total of five awards—Best Newcomer, Best Singer, Best Producer, Best Song and Best Album.

The song Airport 10.30 first caught people's attention, but it was the simply arranged, melodic I Love You that became one of Tao's signature tunes.

The album also featured an a cappella song, Spring Wind, which was a new R&B version of a favorite old Taiwanese song.

Tao sang all the vocals in this song, which still stands today, widely regarded as one of the best a cappella songs in Chinese.

Airport 10.30 was also nominated for the MTV Awards for Best Chinese Video in 1998 along with Coco Lee, who became the eventual winner.

Tao won two of the awards, namely Best Newcomer and Best Producer, becoming the first newcomer/singer to also win a Best Producer award.

Tao's first album was notable for the excellent production which, remarkably, was done in Tao's home in Los Angeles entirely.

The album also broke new ground in the music style and arrangement with its strong Western-influenced R&B flavor.

Tao shot to an unprecedented meteoric rise to fame following the release of David Tao.

Unable to cope with the sudden media attention, he flew back to Los Angeles soon afterwards.

Between David Tao and his next album, besides releasing a remixed Bastard Pop ep, writing and producing songs for various hit Taiwanese singers, notably a theme song which became one of Taiwanese boyband Tension's hit songs, I'll Be With You, Tao was not heard on the Mandarin-Pop scene for a long while as he quietly disappeared into obscurity.

In 1999, two years after his first album, Tao released his second album I'm OK.

This album was claimed to be a best-selling album by breaking the previous record by selling 600,000 copies, yet various critics had claimed that the impact of I'm OK was not any stronger than his previous work in terms of style and arrangement.

Notable hits include:

In this album, Tao attempted many musical styles, including, unsurprisingly, his favorite rock music.

In fact, some critics have noted that each of his songs are different from one another, in terms of their style and music arrangement.

Tao was nominated for six GMA awards for I'm OK – Best Album, Best Producer, Best Singer, Best Video, Best Song and Best Song Arrangement.

He only won the Best Producer Award on the GMA, but Rain later went on to win Best Chinese Video at the 2000 MTV Music Awards.

In 2002, Tao released "Black Tangerine".

Some notable songs in this post-911 album, of which he derived much of his inspiration from:

What set Black Tangerine apart was the strong social commentary, including a track consisting of various actual Taiwanese news snippets of unrelated family tragedies and public incidents, placing the state of Taiwanese society in a somewhat negative point of view.

Dear God tells about the sadness of Tao regarding a mother of a victim who has died in 911 and stared at her son's picture and expected him to revive.

Tao uses his song as weapon to bitterly criticize terrorists.