New Straits Times - Lim Kim Bee (26th Nov 1990)

HOW ALFRED HO GAUGES MOOD OF HIS AUDIENCE
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Blind musician Alfred Ho sees his audience with his mind's eye and the years of entertaining have enabled him to gauge their moods.

Blind since young, Alfred worked as a telephone operator in the Penang Municipal Council before quitting sometime in 1984 to sing full-time.

"When you can see the people's faces, it is much easier to gauge what they want. I have to listen for their applause or go by the night's requests to find out their response. Reading them with my ears isn't difficult really. When I don't hear the response I want, I would switch to other numbers until I hit the right ones."

Although this entertainer's favourites are oldies and country and western, he also sings Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay and contemporary numbers.

Alfred who likes P. Ramlee's songs and also yodels when he does country and western numbers, says he quit his job for showbiz because of the challenged involved.

Since going professional, Alfred has done stints in pubs, at functions and department stores in Kuala Lumpur and also performed at a leading hotel in Kuala Terengganu.

His most memorable moments in Ipoh have been the shows he did at the Royal Ipoh Club which he said was made possible by the late journalist John Kam, who helped arrange for his performance.

He also credited Royston Goh and Patrick Teoh as being responsible for starting him off on his singing career.