Early life
Sinn Sisamouth was born in August 23, 1932 in Stung Treng Province, the son of Sinn Leang and mother Seb Bunlei.[1]
He was the youngest of four siblings, with one brother and two sisters. His father was a prison warden inBattambang Province and was then a soldier during the Colonial Cambodia period. His father died of disease and his mother remarried, and the union resulted in two more children.
Sisamouth attended Central Province of Stung Treng Elementary School when he was five. At the age of six or seven, he started to show interest in the guitar, and he would be asked to perform at school functions. He was also interested in Buddhist scripture and other books, as well as playing soccer and flying kites.
Around 1951, he passed elementary school and intended to study medicine in Phnom Penh, but continued working at becoming a singer and writing songs. Just as he had in elementary school, he became well known in his school for his music, and was asked to sing at school ceremonies.
By the time Cambodia was granted independence from France in 1953, Sisamouth's fine singing voice landed him a spot on national radio as a regular singer. He also continued his studies, working at Preah Ketomealea Hospital.
Music career
After completing medical school, Sisamouth became a nurse and married his cousin, Keo Thorng Gnut in anarranged marriage. The couple had four children. But he was also a very famous singing star in Cambodia, and his life as a celebrity eclipsed his family life.
He possessed a clear crooning voice which, combined with his own compositions about the pleasures and pains of romance, made him an idol. He sang many ballads, as well uptempo rock numbers that featured prominent, distortion-laden guitar, pumping organ and loud, driving drums. Other arrangements were more Latin jazz-sounding, featuring woodwinds, brass, and auxiliary percussion.
In the early 1950s he became a protégé of Queen Nearyrath. He was selected into the Vong Phleng Preah Reach Troap (classical ensemble of the Royal Treasury) where together with Sos Matt, he performed at royal receptions and state functions. A number of songs he wrote subsequently bore the unmistakable melancholic melodies of traditional Khmer music he performed in those formative years. In the mid-1950s a romantic ballad "Violon Sneha", composed by violinist Hass Salan, catapulted Sisamouth into stardom. In recent years the song has been re-issued by a large number of modern performers, including Song Seng Horn, who comes from Rhode Island, Mol Kamach (a singer and guitarist of the 1960s who escaped the Khmer Rouge rule and is now living in France), Nay Sieng (a Khmer based in France), and Him Sivonn (a female vocalist from Phnom Penh).
