Even though most of Shanghai's people originated from the neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces who speak a Chinese dialect called Wu (which is also spoken in Shanghai) - which is totally different from Mandarin. During Shanghai's bustly 20s and 30s, there were many talented & well educated Chinese who came from the Guangdong region that brought with them entrepreneuralship and arts.

As a result many in the arts were almost entirely from Guangdong. Example of some famous Guangdong (Cantonese) performers, composers, artists are Xian Xinghai (冼星海), Lai Man-Wai (黎民偉) - who is also the father of Hong Kong Cinema, Lu Wencheng (吕文成), and so on.

Guangdong music (廣東音樂) is a style of traditional Chinese instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas in Guangdong Province on the southern coast of China. The name of the music originated in the 1920 and 1930s when the music was popular in Shanghai ballrooms in the form of "Spiritual Music" (精神音樂) As the performers were almost entirely from Guangdong, Shanghai people generalized the form of music as Guangdong music. Musically, compositions are based on tunes derived from Yueju (Cantonese opera), together with new compositions from the 1920s onwards.

Source -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_music_%28genre%29




Very Famous 20's & 30's Chinese Music that originated from Guangdong:

平湖秋月 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI9-URr9r80
鳥投林 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npROmnqgxDQ
蕉石鳴琴 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srhxreaHR2s
not sure - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WEj0tA__Q8
彩雲追月 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whI7nSF2Stk

Does anyone know any other songs? or Shanghai music composer/singer that originates from Guangdong?

did/does Shanghai had/have a Cantonese district?

There is this old Chinese song from the 20s or 30s that i like 天涯歌女 -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_2RW3h1XA
Did it originated from the Jiangnan area (Southern Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang) or from the North?
Another clip of 天涯歌女 (the 2nd song in this clip).. the actress in this video clip is Hong Kong actor Cecilia Cheung playing Zhou Xuan (周璇) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1r8rW_h4Jg...feature=related

I'm guessing songs produced from Shanghai were sung in Mandarin instead of Shanghainese (Wu), cuz Mandarin was the National language of china and the gov't wanted to promote shanghai as the nation's largest city. Even today, the present gov't is trying to encourage Shanghainese people not to speak Shanghainese, but Mandarin to show to the world it is China's Financial center and the largest. But in reality Shanghainese still want to keep their shanghainese like Hong Kongers want to keep their Standard Cantonese.

how come noone answers >.<

i was in total surprise to find out these 2 famous Traditional Chinese songs originated from Guangdong ^^"
旱天雷 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7fS_uN9sUA
步步高 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN4J68pGKmY

Sources:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%B1%E5%A4%A9%E9%9B%B7
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A5%E6%AD%A5%E9%AB%98

More info on 廣東音樂 -> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BF%E4%...%9F%B3%E4%B9%90

Andy, Shanghainese people listens to 越剧，not 粤剧。

Shanghainese people speak 滬語, though it belongs to Wu, it is significantly different.

i never said Shanghainese listen to 粤剧, i know that they listen to 越剧 which originates from Zhejiang. But because in the 20s and 30s most of the Shanghai performers were from Guangdong, which is why many Shanghainese call the music of those times Guangdong Music, since they were composed by local artists originating from Guangdong.

can you tell me what the chinese words were?

thanks

of course i know what they mean.. Zhejiang Yue Opera and Cantonese Yue Opera, but i never mentioned anything about Chinese Opera =/

There were many Hongkong or cantonese businessman who do business in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. There were also many Shanghainese who moved to Hongkong later on.

That's why you will see many Hongkong drama series portraying scenes of Shanghai.

I thought it was the opposite, that Shanghai people often moved to Hong Kong, especially after the Civil War in 1949...but even during WWII>