Kim Tae-won (, April 12, 1965) is a

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

with over 30 years of experience in Korean

music industry The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...

, currently leading one of the most successful rock bands in Korean music history,

Boohwal Boohwal () is a South Korean rock music, rock band, formed in 1985 by the lead guitarist/songwriter Kim Tae-won. History Formation and the 1980s Kim Tae-won changed the name of the group from "The End" to "부활" ("Boohwal") in ‘86 follo ...

. His life was dramatised in a four episode

KBS2 KBS 2TV is a South Korean free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen ...

short series '' Rock, Rock, Rock'', where Kim was portrayed by musician-actor No Minwoo.

Adolescence

He was a talented

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

player, having achieved the level of 300 points as a highschool senior. His guitar skill was even more outstanding: He is said to have been able to play proficiently the guitar riff in

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. With a he ...

’s “ Babe I'm Gonna Leave You” in

middle school Middle school, also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school, is an educational stage between primary school and secondary school. Afghanistan In Afghanistan, middle school includes g ...

and the guitar solo of (towards the end of the song) Deep Purple's " Highway Star" at a much faster speed than normal. He slowly rose to fame among fellow students in the Seodaemun area, his home town. He was called “the best guitarist everybody knows”.

Career

At 20, he started a

rock band ''Rock Band'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2007 and developed by Harmonix. Based on their previous development work from the Guitar Hero, ''Guitar Hero'' series, the main ''Rock Band'' games have players use game controllers mod ...

called "The End" with two colleagues, one of whom was Kim Jong-Seo who later left the band to join the then more established rock act Sinawe. With The End, he performed covers of western rock songs for audiences in various places in Korea. It was when Jong-Seo joined that the band changed its name into "Boohwal", which means resurrection in Korean. After Jong-Seo left the band, Lee Seung-Cheol joined as new lead vocalist and they gained huge success with their first hit number, "Heeya (희야)." Together with Sinawe leader Shin Daechul and Baekdoosan's Kim Do Kyun, Tae-won worked on the guitar musical project D.O.A. and released the album ''Dead or Alive'' in 2003.

Personal life

In 2011, Kim was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In one of Qualifications of Men episodes the member had to testing for cancer, but unfortunately Kim's results were positive. Kim Tae Won underwent surgery to remove the tumor on 16 January, and underwent another one on the 22nd. All of the tumors have been removed successfully, he is now completely cured.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Tae-won 1965 births South Korean rock guitarists Living people Musicians from Seoul People from Yongsan District Singers from Seoul