Monday, March 25, 2019

khamron sambunnanon: khon ba kancha



artist: คำรณ สัมบุญณานนท์ (khamron sambunnanon)
album: คนบ้ากัญชา (khon ba kancha)
tracklist:
01. มนต์การเมือง (mon kan mueang)
02. คนแก่โลก (khon kae lok)
03. ชีวิตคำรณ (chiwit khamron)
04. ขวานทองของไทย (khwan thong khong thai)
05. ไอ้ทุยแถลงการณ์ (ai thui thalaeng kan)
06. คนบ้ากัญชา (khon ba kancha)
07. กระท่อมกัญชา (krathom kancha)
08. ชีวิตครู (chiwit khru)
09. หนุ่มเหนือแอ่วนาง (num nuea aeo nang)
10. น้ำตาเสือตก (nam ta suea tok)

this week's cassette is part of a generous bequest gifted to us by educator cliff sloane, a former professor of ethnomusicology and founder of asianclassicalmp3.org, a major influence behind this blog.

today, we'll hear from mr. khamron sambunnanon, singing songs of crooked politicians and ganja madmen! hailing from bangkok's chinatown, khamron sang what were called at the time phleng talat ("market songs"), as his lyrics were among the earliest examples of thai pop music to feature tales of common people; farmers, day laborers, and even more marginal figures like gamblers, vagrants, outlaws and drug addicts. because of this, khamron is considered by many to be the very first singer of luk thung, and many of the great luk thung stars of the 60s and 70s fondly recall singing along to khamron's songs during their formative years. this album, from the bangkok cassette co., ltd. (currently existing as maemaiplengthai), contains several songs that i've shared before on various collections over the years, but once again shouldn't hurt.. enjoy!

preview:


7 comments:

Timmy said...

Excellent stuff! Many thanx to all.

poorudoo said...

เทปชุดนี้ คลาสสิคมากครับ คุณปีเตอร์

Doug S. said...

Hi Peter,
There appear to be two different recordings from Khamron Sumbunnanon named "Khon Be Kancha," this one and another that you shred in 2011: https://monrakplengthai.blogspot.com/2011/04/khamron-sambunnanon-khon-ba-kancha.html

Can you explain what the deal is with this?! There don't appear to be any tracks shared by both releases, so one doesn't seem to be some sort of version of the other. What's the story?

Doug S. said...

I neglected to say, profusely and eternally, THANK YOU for this amazing music!

peter said...

hi Doug,

thanks for all the kind words!

as for an explanation, the thing is that both these tapes are in fact compilations of selected old 78-rpm sides. they're more like "greatest hits" sets, rather than original long-players. however, instead of titling them "greatest hits" or what have you, the compilers would typically chose whichever of the singles had most purchase at the time to be the title of that collection, and competing re-issue labels would often settle on the same song to be their "title track".

so the bangkok cassette company (who released this tape), decided to call vol. 1 of their khamron sambunnanon compilation series "khon ba kancha", after the single, and tape burapha [bp] (who released the tape in the 2011 post) decided to title vol. 2 of THEIR khamron sambunnanon compilation series after the same single (you can see the ชุด/ชุดที่ 1/2 on the respective j-cards).

hope that makes sense!

Doug S. said...

Ah! Thank you for the thorough and thoughtful explanation!

Effarrvee said...

Helloo mate great blog