Yesterday, I talked about Sakamoto Kyu, someone whose music I really enjoyed when I lived in Japan, but who I've delayed featuring on Sharing Music I Like because he seemed too obvious.
And then I thought, well, if I'm going to do the really obvious ones, then I might as well do Sinn Sisamouth as well.
If Sakamoto Kyu is Japan's most well-known pop singer from the 1960s, then Sinn Sisamouth is Cambodia's most well-known 1960s pop-singer.
Sinn Sisamouth[a] (c. 1932 – c. 1976) was a Cambodian singer-songwriter active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Widely considered the "King of Khmer Music", Sisamouth, along with Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Mao Sareth, and other Cambodian artists, was part of a thriving pop music scene in Phnom Penh that blended elements of Khmer traditional music with the sounds of rhythm and blues and rock and roll to develop a Cambodian rock sound. Sisamouth died during the Khmer Rouge regime under circumstances that are unclear.
In my article about Japanese oldies, I wrote that young Japanese people have absolutely no interest in old Japanese pop. But the same is not true of Cambodia. Sinn Sisamouth and the other pop singers from the 1960s are still really popular in Cambodia. You could hear their music everywhere when I lived there.
I remember, in Phnom Penh at night, the tuk-tuk drivers used to sleep on the sidewalks next to their tuk-tuk. They'd put on the radio as they went to sleep, and it used to play Sinn Sisamouth songs. Many times walking home from the bars, I remember hearing the Sinn Sisamouth songs on the sidewalk as I walked past.
Because his influence on Cambodian music was so great, Sisamouth is still a household name in Cambodia and remains popular to this day.[27] He is extensively profiled in the 2015 documentary film on the history of Cambodian popular music, Don't Think I've Forgotten, in which several interview subjects describe Sisamouth as the most important Cambodian musician of all time.[12] The film takes its title from a Sisamouth song.[13][28] Often called the "King of Khmer music," "the Cambodian Elvis," or the "golden voice," his lasting cultural impact is difficult to overstate.[29][30][31][32]
I regret to say that I never got as deep into Cambodian oldies as I did into Japanese oldies.
I intended to, at first. When I first arrived in Cambodia, I bought a few CDs of Cambodian oldies, and I used to listen to them in the evenings. But I never really learned the names of the songs, or (with a few exceptions), most of the singers.
Part of this is because I never learned Cambodian. (For a variety of reasons I won't get into here, I never learned Cambodian the way I succeeded in learning Japanese.)
But, I did have a couple of CDs, and I did enjoy some Sinn Sisamouth music during the time I lived in Cambodia.
It's a bit difficult for me to track specific songs down on Youtube now, because I don't know the names of the songs I used to listen to. (I never learned how to read Cambodian script).
But, I did find a couple of them.
This song, for example:
...this song was on one of the CDs I bought. I thought it was a really beautiful song. I used to listen to this song at night, while looking out at Phnom Penh from my balcony, and just watching the city at night.
Here's another one I recognize, and remember fondly:
...now, because I never learned Cambodian, I can't understand any of these songs. I have no idea what the lyrics are, or what the title means. I just like the sound of them.
By the way, the scratchy sound quality of the recording is true of all old Cambodian music. All of the CDs I bought of old Cambodian music had this scratchy quality to them. According to Wikipedia, the masters of the recordings were lost or destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. I'm not sure how much better they would have sounded if the master had been preserved, or if some of that sound is also due to the quality of the original recording.
But to my mind, on a quiet night when you're looking over the city, the scratchy staticky sound of these songs kind of adds to their romance.
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