By Frankie D'Cruz

Few Malaysians today know the name Beh Suat Pheng, but the early music industry in the country would not have been the same without her.

She did business with intensity and woman power to become a dynamo in the local music sphere.

Popularly known as "Mrs Beh", she broke barriers in the international music industry and became a swashbuckling music piracy enforcer and an astute talent spotter in Malaysia.

Beh became the first woman managing director in the history of EMI Music Worldwide upon becoming head of EMI Malaysia in 1981.

Beh pictured here with the late Kenny Rogers at the
EMI Music Worldwide MD's conference in Los Angeles in 1981.

She did the unthinkable: a young Asian woman breaking into a white-dominated company at a time when the top echelon was a boys' club and gender parity was still a world away.

For most of her time as EMI Malaysia supremo, music piracy was rampant and fraught with danger. A bold Beh fought relentlessly against pirates who replicated commercial music in cassettes.

She launched crippling assaults on the racketeers along with the likes of the late lawyer, Kasim Cha Tong and his sidekick Ram Singh Gill, who were hired by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) as music piracy combatants.

Music piracy combatant Kasim Cha Tong
joined Beh in crippling assaults on racketeers.

They conducted joint raids with the police and record company executives and when that was not possible, the Anton Piller Order was used to have recording artistes to accompany the raiding party as the intellectual property was rightfully theirs.

They also lobbied legislators to curb the nearly unstoppable bootlegging that sponged on more than 80% of Malaysia's recorded music business.

Harm haunted them: In one incident, Beh required three stitches on her head after a helmeted man attacked her with a piece of wood outside her office.

"I don't know if it was related (to music pirates) or not but I can't think of any other reason and police couldn't solve the case," she told FMT.

In November 2008, Kasim was gunned down by two men at his home in the Thai border town of Sungai Golok. The murder remains unsolved.

Their hard work was instrumental in Malaysia adopting a new copyright law in 1987. Counterfeiters felt the heat for a decade, at least, as sales of legitimate recordings soared.

Stories about syndicates that once made Malaysia an exporter of counterfeit audio recordings were among the memories that flowed when FMT caught up with Beh following the death last week of her former EMI Music Worldwide boss, Vijaya Bhaskar Menon.

Legendary music executive Bhaskar Menon
inspired Beh to set the bar high.

Menon, who is credited with singlehandedly changing the face of the international music industry in the 1970-80s, died at his home in Beverly Hills on March 4. He was 87.

Beh, 78, said: "Baskar was a good boss and we became close friends when he made regional visits. In the chauvinistic world of the music then, he was a perfect gentleman.

"He was a brilliant mind, told wonderful stories and was an equal opportunity employer who respected women and showed genuine interest in what people did and said," she added.

Decades before Indians routinely became CEOs of top American companies, Menon, a Malayalee from Kerala, became the first Asian to make a major breakthrough in corporate America.

At the age of 35 in 1969, the Oxford University graduate was hired to head the operations of multinational enterprise, EMI, in Los Angeles, US.

A year earlier, Beh, a 25-year-old alumnus of the Bukit Bintang Girls' School and the Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur, became employee No 1 at EMI Malaysia.

As MD of EMI Malaysia, Beh rubbed shoulders with top artistes.
She is seen here with Diana Ross in New York in the '80s.

A friendship between the two blossomed when Menon, as chairman of EMI's subsidiary, Gramophone Company of India, came to Malaysia to help market records by top Indian artistes like Lata Mangeshkar and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar in the age of vinyl and cassette.

They forged a closer relationship when Menon was elevated to founding chairman and CEO of EMI Music Worldwide.

Beh was always on Menon's radar as she had gained invaluable experience working with EMI Malaysia pioneers, Tony Tanner, Michael Commerford and Joseph Khoo.

She said Menon inspired her to set the bar high as in his prime, he was responsible for the production of almost 30% of the world's recorded music and managed offices in 46 countries.

Later, as president and CEO of Capitol Records, Menon reversed the fortunes of the label in which EMI had a majority interest.

Beh recalled Menon took the audacious decision to put Capitol's entire weight behind Pink Floyd's revolutionary 1973 album, "The Dark Side of the Moon", despite the British band's failure to break through to US audiences over the preceding years.

The strategy paid off: 'The Dark Side of the Moon' minted the band as major stars in America and quickly rocketed to No 1 on the Billboard 200, remaining on the chart for 14 years.

Later in 1973, Menon signed an unknown British group called Queen with a sensational lead singer, Freddie Mercury.

He also oversaw gold releases from stellar acts like Grand Funk Railroad, Paul McCartney and The Wings, David Bowie, Bob Seger, The Steve Miller Band, Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt, Helen Reddy and Natalie Cole.

Beh, seen here with singer Tina Turner in New York in the '80s.

By 1975, Capitol's recovery was complete: further gold albums came from George Harrison, Glen Campbell, The Beach Boys and Tina Turner while its best-selling catalogue comprised The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond and Olivia Newton-John.

With an ear for recognising talent and the skill to nurture it, Beh also went on to score quite a few hits.

Among those she wooed to the EMI stable were the late Sudirman Arshad, Sharifah Aini, rock queen Ella, Uji Rashid, D J Dave, Noorkumalasari and KRU, all of whom went on to achieve megastar status.

Rock queen Ella was one of the numerous artistes whom
Beh wooed to the EMI stable.

"We were the first Malaysian company to break an artiste (Sheila Majid) in Indonesia and Japan and also the first to record songs by local artistes like Sharifah Aini and Sudirman in English," Beh said.

Beh's exhilarating journey in the industry also saw her take on responsibilities in bodies representing recording companies, composers and artistes.

She said: "While it was complex, demanding and exhausting, there were many proud moments and it was rewarding."

Asked if there was anything she would like to change in the music industry, Beh said: "The music industry has changed by itself. It is very different now."

Today, her focus is to inspire action and create opportunities to transform the lives of women and girls as president of the Soroptimist International Club of Bangsar, one of 3,000 such volunteer movements comprising professional women around the world.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Khoo Suat Pheng
VI 1960 - 1961

At the 50th Anniversary celebrations of
her 1961 VI HSC batch

Suat Pheng (left) at the VI Swimming Pool
with her BBGS classmates (1959)