Cambodian rock (1960s–1970s)

Post-independence period#

Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953, under the leadership of young king Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk was a musician and songwriter, and fostered the development of homegrown popular music in the newly independent country. Under Sihanouk’s rule, it was common for government ministries to have their own orchestras or singing groups to perform at official state functions and royal receptions. For example, Sihanouk’s mother, Queen Sisowath Kossamak, sponsored the Vong Phleng Preah Reach Troap (the classical ensemble of the Royal Treasury), and in approximately 1957 invited the young Sinn Sisamouth to join the ensemble as his first professional music job. Cambodia’s international relations with France and various countries in Latin America fostered the importation of pop records into the country, while children from wealthy Cambodian families often attended school in France and returned with French pop records that were widely traded among fans in Phnom Penh. Latin jazz, cha cha cha, and À gogo records imported from Latin America also became popular in the capital city. By the late 1950s, these genres inspired a flourishing pop music scene in Phnom Penh, featuring singers who created a unique sound by combining traditional Cambodian music forms with these new international influences. Sinn Sisamouth, Mao Sareth, So Savoeun, Chhuon Malay, Sieng Di, and Sos Math were among the earliest stars in this pop scene, with Sisamouth in particular becoming a leader of popular trends in which Cambodian musicians absorbed more international influences, eventually leading to the development of Cambodian rock music. The band originally performed crooning vocal music inspired by Paul Anka and Pat Boone, then added inspiration from the guitar-driven music of The Ventures and Chuck Berry. Sisamouth fostered the careers of younger singers and musicians, writing songs for them while also utilizing them in many of his own songs. Pen Ran (also known as Pan Ron) was one of the earliest rock-oriented female singers in the Cambodian scene, first emerging in 1963 with traditional pop songs but moving into rock music by 1966 via duets with Sisamouth as well as her own songs. Pen Ran was particularly influential, known for her flirtatious dancing and risque lyrics that subverted traditional Khmer gender roles. Sisamouth was also instrumental in launching the career of Ros Serey Sothea, who had been singing at weddings and quickly became the leading female singer in the Cambodian rock scene after her emergence in 1967. Sothea received wide recognition for her high and clear singing voice, and her ability to convey emotions from mischief and flirtation to heartbreak and tragedy. Sothea maintained an active career with her own songs as well as many popular duets with Sisamouth. Sihanouk continued to support the Cambodian music scene through his patronage of the national radio station, allowing the station to promote local music. She became a popular singer as well, known particularly for highly personal lyrics that subverted the social expectations placed on Khmer women, and a melancholic voice that Sihanouk compared to Édith Piaf. Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran and others also maintained separate music careers concurrently. Their rock n’ roll records, which were popular with younger people, were released alongside works in other genres including traditional Cambodian music, romantic ballads, and film music, with those latter genres remaining popular with the country’s older music fans. Ros Serey Sothea and Pen Ran are both believed to have sung on hundreds of songs, and Pen Ran wrote many of her songs herself.

Khmer Republic period#

By 1969, Norodom Sihanouk had lost the support of many urban and educated Cambodians due to his inability to keep the hostilities of the Vietnam War from spilling across the country’s borders. In March 1970, Sihanouk was deposed by the Cambodian National Assembly and replaced by military leader Lon Nol, thus forming the right-wing, pro-American Khmer Republic. Rock musicians in Phnom Penh generally favored the new Khmer Republic government and turned against Sihanouk, particularly after he attempted to maintain his support in Cambodia’s rural countryside by aligning with the communist Khmer Rouge insurgents. Many singers, including Sinn Sisamouth, released patriotic songs and made public appearances to support the Khmer Republic military. Ros Serey Sothea released a song called “The Traitor” that directly criticized Sihanouk, her former patron. The Khmer Republic’s increased relations with the United States, plus the prevalence of U.S. Armed Forces Radio that had been broadcast to troops in nearby South Vietnam and could be picked up in Phnom Penh, allowed new musical influences to infiltrate the Cambodian rock scene. Aularong has been described as a “proto-punk” by the New York Times. with a belting vocal style that has been compared to Wilson Pickett and James Brown. Pou Vannary, unusually for a female singer in the genre, was also an instrumentalist who could accompany herself on acoustic guitar in the mode of an American singer-songwriter, displaying a vocal style that was much more relaxed and intimate than her contemporaries. These musicians also adopted hippie hairstyles and fashions, as further indicators of American influence in Cambodia at the time. This latest wave of rock musicians, plus established stars like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea, continued their music careers throughout the early 1970s. However, the Cambodian Civil War took its toll on the country, as did American bombing campaigns associated with the Vietnam War. Due to wartime curfews, musicians often had to play in clubs during the day and often heard nearby gunfire and explosions during their performances. The Cambodian rock scene persevered in this fashion until the fall of the Khmer Republic in April 1975.

Khmer Rouge period and the Cambodian genocide#

The Cambodian Civil War ended in April 1975 when the communist Khmer Rouge defeated the Khmer Republic and gained control of the country. The Khmer Rouge ordered the two million residents of Phnom Penh to evacuate the city and move to prison farms and labor camps, The city’s musicians were included in this forced exodus. The Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot, wanted to return the nation of Cambodia to an idyllic notion of the past by implementing a radical form of agrarian socialism while simultaneously shunning outside aid and influence. In order to build and protect their utopian goals, the Khmer Rouge perceived enmity in anyone tied to the previous Cambodian governments, ethnic and religious minorities, intellectuals, and members of certain professions. In the ensuing Cambodian genocide, about 25 percent of the Cambodian population perished. More than half of those who died during the genocide are believed to have been directly executed. The rest died through forced labor, malnutrition, and disease due to the Khmer Rouge’s cruelty and poor management of its utopian project. Musicians posed an apparent threat to the Khmer Rouge regime due to their influence on culture, incompatibility with an agrarian lifestyle, and foreign influences. Many of Cambodia’s rock musicians disappeared during the genocide and their exact fates have never been confirmed. Due to these musicians’ enduring popularity with the Cambodian people, reports differ on how some of them died. Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea are both believed to have been summarily executed by Khmer Rouge soldiers out of fear that their popularity could foment resistance among the population. However, these reports have never been confirmed. Meas Samon is believed to have been executed at a work site after refusing to stop playing music during breaks. During the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, singer Sieng Vannthy was confronted by insurgents who demanded to know her occupation. She lied and said she was a banana seller, which probably saved her life as the Khmer Rouge were already known to target musicians for imprisonment or execution. Relations between the Khmer Rouge regime and neighboring Vietnam collapsed in late 1978, igniting the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Vietnam launched a full-scale military invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 and captured Phnom Penh the following month, thus ending the Khmer Rouge regime and the Cambodian genocide. Vietnamese forces sent the Khmer Rouge into exile in Thailand and installed Heng Samrin as the new leader of the restored Cambodia. Residents who had been exiled to farm camps and other Khmer Rouge installations were invited to return to Phnom Penh. Singer Sieng Vannthy, who had survived the genocide, was invited to make an announcement on Cambodia’s national radio station that residents were welcome to return to the city. Those who did not return were considered dead, including musicians.

Rediscovery#

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, surviving Cambodian rock musicians regrouped and attempted to locate missing colleagues. Many musicians contacted Ros Saboeut, older sister of Ros Serey Sothea, to inquire about Sothea’s fate. Sothea did not survive the genocide but Saboeut took the opportunity to reunite Cambodia’s surviving rock musicians, maintaining a list of contacts. Saboeut’s efforts are widely credited with reviving Cambodian popular music in the aftermath of the genocide. The post-Khmer Rouge government made specific moves to re-establish the country’s radio industry, allowing surviving singers and musicians to resume their careers by creating new entertainment content. The Cambodian music scene moved on to more modern pop forms, consigning the country’s 1960s–1970s rock music to the memories of older fans who had survived the genocide. Black marketeers were known to remix songs by artists like Ros Serey Sothea and Pen Ran to make them more dance-able for current music fans, often with unknown musicians adding stronger drum beats and other effects; some songs were also artificially sped up so more could be squeezed onto inexpensive cassettes to be sold on the street. The Parallel World label, upon hearing Wheeler’s mixtape, assembled the 13-track compilation album Cambodian Rocks and released 1,000 copies on vinyl in 1996. When those sold out, the label issued the much more widely known CD version with 22 tracks. Wheeler made no effort to discover the song titles or the names of the artists, and Cambodian Rocks was released with no supporting information, thus giving it the appearance of a bootleg. In the years since the CD’s release, interested listeners have collaborated on the Internet to confirm the artist names and song titles, discovering that ten of the album’s 22 songs were by Ros Serey Sothea, with other tracks by Sinn Sisamouth, Pen Ran, Yol Aularong, Meas Samon, and Liev Tuk. and Far East Audio called it an “instant classic.” The New York Times said the album and the circumstances of its release “established a lasting aura of mystery around the music.” The 2002 film City of Ghosts, a crime thriller that takes place in Cambodia, featured songs by Sinn Sisamouth, Pen Ran, Ros Serey Sothea, Meas Samon, and Chhuon Malay on its soundtrack. American filmmaker John Pirozzi, a production assistant for City of Ghosts, was given a copy of Cambodian Rocks while working in the country and decided to research the musicians on the album and their fates at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. His research ultimately resulted in the 2015 film Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, which was named after a Sinn Sisamouth song. The film finds that the 1960s–1970s Cambodian rock music played by the band was still popular with the country’s people, and fans were interested in seeing a mostly American band perform the songs. Dengue Fever also released a charity compilation of 1960s–1970s Cambodian rock songs called Electric Cambodia in 2010. After ten years of research in conjunction with Cambodian-born artist and sociology professor LinDa Saphan, Pirozzi completed the documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten in 2015, featuring in-depth profiles of many of the Cambodian rock scene’s most influential performers. The film received almost universally positive reviews, further igniting worldwide interest in the Cambodian rock music scene. The film’s international release inspired reunion concerts by surviving members of Drakkar, and concerts celebrating the legacy of Sinn Sisamouth and his contemporaries. The film’s soundtrack album contained many professionally restored songs that had not been available on other compilations, including some by rarely compiled artists like Baksey Cham Krong, Pou Vannary, Huoy Meas, and Sieng Vannthy.

Legacy and influence#

The Cambodian Rocks album and similar compilations are believed to have inspired the formation of several modern bands who perform cover versions of original Cambodian rock songs and create new music based on that genre. For example, in the late 1990s American rock keyboardist Ethan Holtzman discovered the genre while traveling in Cambodia, and his guitarist brother Zac Holtzman had coincidentally discovered the same music while working at a California record store. In 2001, the brothers formed the band Dengue Fever with Cambodian-born Chhom Nimol, who had previously been a well-known singer in her native country before emigrating to the United States. Dengue Fever first performed covers of original Cambodian rock songs discovered by the Holtzman brothers, but have since released several albums of original material inspired by the genre. Meanwhile, the band Cambodian Space Project was formed in 2009 in Cambodia by singer Kak Channthy and Australian enthusiast Julien Poulson; that band released five albums of covers of 1960s–1970s Cambodian rock songs and original songs inspired by the genre. Cambodian Space Project disbanded in March 2018 when Channthy was killed in a car accident. The Cambodian rock scene of the 1960s–1970s has also become a matter of interest to record collectors around the world, while specialists like Dust-to-Digital have embarked on projects to locate and restore surviving records. In addition to enthusiasts like Dengue Fever, other western musicians have become fans of the genre. One example is hip-hop songwriter/producer Danger Mouse, who noted “There were these groups… who took Beatles songs and whatever else, put their own lyrics in and called it whatever they wanted to. … It sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard.” Singer-songwriter Sin Setsochhata, a granddaughter of Sinn Sisamouth, has gained international notice for combining Cambodian rock influences with modern pop sounds. Cambodian rapper VannDa regularly references the country’s 1960s–1970s rock musicians in his lyrics. The 2018 off-Broadway musical Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee is inspired by the genre and its historical backdrop.

Notable artists#

The Cambodian rock scene of the 1960s–1970s was very robust, with hundreds of active performers. Information on many of them remains lost after the chaos of the Khmer Rouge regime, while some others remain to be discovered by Western journalists and enthusiasts. The list below includes those musicians whose works have become available in the West. * Baksey Cham Krong * Chhun Vanna * Chhuon Malay * Dara Jamchan * Drakkar * Eng Nary * Huoy Meas * Im Song Seum * In Yeng * Keo Montha * Koy Sarim * Liev Tuk * Mao Sareth * Meas Samon * Pen Ran * Pou Vannary * Ros Serey Sothea * Sieng Di * Sieng Vannthy * Sinn Sisamouth * So Savoeun * Sos Math * Voa Saroun * Yol Aularong

See also#

• Dance in Cambodia
• Music of Cambodia
• Traditional Cambodian musical instruments