My chance came when the school needed to organize a big fair. I knew a friend who loved to sing, and his favorite song was "Ngậm Ngùi". He approached me and asked if I could play for him during the show. I accepted and we started to practice together. I carefully listened to the arrangement from the best selection recorded by Le^. Thu in the album released by Jo Marcel. After the show, I told my friend to tell the director to let me play any time I wanted to and I was approved. From then on, every night, many students would run to the hall and asked me to entertain them. I became everyone's favorite. After almost a year of intern, my hair grew down to my shoulders, I smoked and swore like there was no tomorrow. My mom was terrified and took me right back to Saigon.

I was admitted back to Taberd to prepare for the "Brevet" which is equivalent to the 10th grade. I don't remember what happened but I became the art group leader and was in charge of decorating the class or compete in drawings for school functions; I guess nobody wanted the job so it fell onto my lap. My class never won a single competition because I was the lousiest artist there was. 

It must have been ''70 or ''71 when we had a fair in our school. I heard music coming from one of the halls. It sounded like they were playing songs by The Beatles. I stood there admiring the 4-piece band. They had the fanciest equipment and they played darn good. The band was called "Les Canaries". Later, as I walked to another hall, I saw a different band trying to play some Vietnamese songs with the worst equipment provided by the school. The drummer was handicapped with a very short back. And worst of all, they had to sing through the metal speakers, and the feed-back was unbearable. I stood there and thought to myself, "This is it, I am going to make these guys famous!" 

I talked to the band and asked them about their rehearsing schedule. I said I wanted to see them practice. At practice, I asked the band leader if he would like to have an organ player in the band. "Do you anybody who can play organ?" He asked. I said, "You're looking at him." They ran to the principal and asked if they could borrow the electric harmonium which produced sounds like the church organ. Then we started to rehearse and called ourselves "The Constellations."