A small documentary film opens in limited cinemas this week. Revisiting a chapter in the Thai music history that many people may have forgotten, The Guitar King tells the story of Lam Morrison, a Thai rock musician and the country's first guitar star in the late 1960s. A long-haired man in his 70s now, Lam honed his guitar skills playing in GI camps in Udon Thani during the Vietnam War, before playing at bars in Bangkok and even toured Germany and Norway.
The Guitar King
Why this documentary? Why now?
It's luck and coincidence. A senior friend Manote Puttal [a DJ and musician] called me one afternoon while I was about to take a nap. He said he just met Lam Morriron, and Lam mentioned that he missed Norway and Germany, where he once toured. I completely woke up at that point because I could envision the whole movie in my head: a man returning to a place that held so many memories for him after three decades. Then I went to see Lam in Pattaya, where he lived, and I met a friendly, good-humoured man. A very happy man, I remember, his eyes always sparkling like a child. I looked back at myself and I realised I wasn't such a happy person -- so a film about a man and his happiness should be good in this moment when real happiness is rare.
Lam Morrison was big in the 1970s but maybe the current generation doesn't know much about him? Why is he still an important personality?
People still know him today, though the younger generation may not have a clear memory of him. What Lam did is something that people below the age of 40 wouldn't understand. He was the first musician to roll up his sleeves and pioneered rock'n'roll music in Thailand during the American GI period of the 60s and 70s, when he put in the groundwork for Thai music scene. But there's very few documents and records about this -- virtually nothing actually. He was also the first Thai musician to tour Europe. To me this is very important because 40 years ago, how many Thai people had passports? And he went to the hotbeds of rock'n'roll music, and he did that for almost 10 years. That's big!
Lam is a product of the GI period, can you tell us more about that?
I wasn't in the generation either but I did a lot of research. The GI camps in the Northeast of Thailand were set up during the Vietnam War, and also the Cold War. Lam spent his musician's life there and that was where hard rock and rock'n'roll music filled the air. In the camps, the latest artillery arrived along with the latest music from the US, and Lam got his musical update from hanging out in the camps and at the GI bars. And that was when the modern Thai music industry hadn't even been born yet.
Lam is best known for playing cover music. Do you think cover artists are less of an artist than those who write their own songs?
I don't know about others, but to me, not in the least. We can measure that a cover song is 'less valuable' than the original -- of course we're not talking about copyrights and all that. When you see Lam play live, in five minutes you'll smile and laugh and feel the emotion -- that's what an artist does to his audience. Lam is a rocker with the most performing hours in the country, and that's why this man is not only alive and kicking. He's still one of the best.
The world has changed. Music has changed. But Lam remains the same, why is that?
Then you have to come and see The Guitar King! Let me ask you, have you ever looked at the ceiling or the wall and your thought drifts back to your past and your eyes well up? Our memory is a strange machine. Something has long become the ruins of the past, and yet it never changes in your memory. It is always there, as if it happened just yesterday.
If you have to pick one of the songs Lam likes to play, what will be be?
Lam is known for his cover version of Gary Moore's The Loner. But after I got to know him, I've come to like Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It's like he's soothing himself and his audience with that song. Even better because the song came from the film The Wizard Of Oz, and it represents a dream of the land over the horizon. Today, we discover reality, which means we don't care about discovering our dream any more.
Director Passakorn Pramunwong, left, and Lam Morrison.
