Banyen Rakkaen doesn't take credit when credit isn't due. Sometimes believed to be the first mor lam artist to ever appear on national TV, the "Queen of mor lam" is quick to rectify the matter.
Banyen Rakkaen’s name is synonymous with high quality folk music.
"No, I wasn't the first mor lam performer to make an appearance on TV. There were many before me," she said.
Even her accolade as the "Queen" doesn't seem to sit comfortably with her, as there are many other female masters such as National Artist Chaweewan Dumnern and Ungkanang Khunchai who still perform regularly, even though their popularity these days, unlike Banyen's, might be limited to the Isan region.
Whether or not she wants to accept her royal title doesn't seem to matter, as Banyen, after 45 years in the business, will be named a National Artist this year for her contribution to folk music.
"I am overjoyed and excited beyond words. This is the highest honour of my life. There can't be anything else to top this. When I first heard the news, I was so shocked, and I thought I was dreaming. We will have a special show to celebrate on the day I receive the award," she said.
At 61, Banyen looks radiant and youthful thanks to her flawless, porcelain skin. The wrinkles playing coyly around her smiling eyes grant an unknowingly authoritative tone to her measured answers. Banyen speaks slowly, with an innate sweet rhythm, almost like she's singing, and every sentence comes with a smile. Unique among her mor lam peers is her ability to maintain her artistic integrity and resurrect her popularity in recent years. The latter can also be partly attributed to the younger public's interest in her only son, actor Tony Rakkaen, which has, in one way or another, brought her name back into the urban mainstream.
But for mor lam and luk thung lovers, Banyen's name means something else entirely it is synonymous with high quality, both as a singer and in star power, thanks to her regal manner and timeless beauty. Banyen has also been working non-stop, and now she has teamed up with her daughter, Candy, for an Isan pop-rock troupe that mixes modern music with applied and traditional mor lam. Banyen handles the traditional part.
For Banyen, whatever format mor lam has taken over the years, it has always been her voice. Born to a contractor father and housewife mother in Ubon Ratchathani, Banyen has always had a vocal gift, one which caused her aunt, mor lam master Noowiang Kaewprasert, to become interested in training Banyen even before Noowiang had heard her sing. She was 14.
"She said I had an echo in my speaking voice. From my speaking voice alone, she was very certain that I could sing mor lam. My mother had always wanted to be a performer, so we decided that I should quit school and study mor lam. It was very arduous. Every minute awake, I spent studying mor lam. I studied singing and dancing, and I had to memorise all the words. During the day I studied with master [my aunt], and at night I recited. I wanted to stay up as late as I could, so I sometimes used a coconut as a pillow so when I fell asleep, the coconut would roll over, and that would wake me up," she said.
After two full years of daily lessons, Master Noowiang felt it was time for Banyen to test her chops. She brought Banyen on stage for the first time, but just to sit and observe at first.
"I sat there in my little square. It was lum klon (poetic mor lam) that night. Then when it was really late at night, she turned around, and told me to sing. My hands and my mouth were shaking, and the sky became pitch dark without any stars. I was so embarrassed. The first song was so nerve-racking that I don't know how I got through it. But my nerves became more stable as people responded very well, and they started to give me money," she said.
From that fateful night, Banyen and her lum klon chops built a name for herself in the space of two years. But health issues kept her from going full steam ahead with her career. By doctor's orders, Banyen needed to take on less strenuous workloads. That was when Rungsimun, a powerful, massively popular, legendary mor lam troupe came calling. Master Thongkum Pengdee was looking for a new leading lady, and Banyen was recruited.
Life on the road with Rungsimun wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. Banyen was away from home most of the time, sometimes for as long as three months at a stretch.
"I never had my teen years. My peers would go to temple fairs and such. My mother used to cry when she saw my friends walking past our house, all happy, ready to attend the fairs. I never had the chance to enjoy what teen girls did. I was at temple fairs or annual fairs only to perform. Mor lam artists of yesteryear had it tough. Not like today! Sometimes we had to walk 10km to a village to perform, and walked 10km back, since there weren't proper roads. Sometimes we rode carts. Sometimes we walked through dark forests to get to where we had to be," she said.
Banyen said the moment that she knew she was famous was when she performed with Rungsimun. She was 17 years old.
"I slept all the time and only woke up when I needed to be on stage. One day, I got off my tour bus and people started running after me. I ran away to hide, peeking my head out to see what was going on. That was the first time I found out I was well-known. I think every artist wants to be known, so it's a really good thing. I wasn't really bothered by it."
Banyen's stint with Rungsimun also proved to be hard on her health, so she decided to leave the troupe and start her own so she could dictate her schedule as she saw fit. Her workload considerably lessened when she became pregnant, as she wanted to spend time with her children. Banyen later separated from her husband, and he took her three kids to Australia where they grew up, while she went to the US to perform regularly for the Thai community there. Her children and grandchildren now live in Bangkok, allowing her to be a doting mother and grandmother.
"I live quite a stress-free life, but my main worries are for my children and my grandchildren. They work a lot, and I am concerned for their health and safety. If it's raining heavily, and they're still out, I get worried sick," she said.
Asked if she sees any potential in the new generation of mor lam stars, Banyen brushes off the question. She knows who is popular, she said, but has never seen them perform live, so she can't very well opine.
"The new generation of audiences stress the fun aspect and fast rhythms. Before, people loved lum rueng (lyrical mor lam) because they could concentrate on the stories told, and people appreciated the wit and banter in lum klon battles. But now they don't really care, and their attention spans are very short. They always want to hear lum cing (dancing mor lam), and they only want to dance. So that's what you mostly get these days," she said.
Banyen said she'll ease out of the business and eventually retire.
"I only have one thing left I want to do. I want to teach mor lam to our youths, I want to pass on my accumulated knowledge. I don't want our art to die away."
