Vintage molam, contemporary vibes

Vintage molam, contemporary vibes

Angkanang Kunchai returns to sing some classic 'deep' tunes

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Vintage molam, contemporary vibes

Angkanang Kunchai is one of the great voices of molam music. She was a successful singer with Surin Paksiri and the Ubon Pattana band during the golden era of the early 1970s and her 7-inch vinyl singles from that era always get the club crowds moving.

As a singer, she's right up there with the greats like National Artist Chaweewan Damnoen and Banyen Rakkaen, and I would definitely include her Lam Sarvane and Lam Ploen Ramvong Lao on my desert-island music selection.

For Bangkok Paradise's 4th anniversary gig, "Isan Lam Plearn", organisers Maft Sai and Chris Menist will, for the first time, be including Angkanang in the line-up at one of their gigs. She will front a new molam outfit, the Bangkok Paradise Molam International Band, which Maft Sai set up last year in order _ as the duo put it _ "to perform vintage molam with 21st-century vibes".

The new band, which made its live debut late last year, was formed by recruiting veteran molam musos like phin master Khammao Perdthanon and khaen maestro Sawai Kaewsombat plus local rockers Piyanart Jotikasthira (bass), Phusana Treeburut (drums) and the wonderfully named Gong Keyboards. Chris Menist will join the band for several tracks on percussion. DJ Maft Sai says that the band won't be playing "her biggest and most well-known hits but some of her deepest molam grooves".

The two DJs will be spinning their usual eclectic mix of deep molam, luk thung, reggae and African vinyl and those attending the party will get an extended-mix CD compilation of musical nuggets. It will be held at Sonic, Sukhumvit Soi 63, on Saturday, March 30. The entrance fee covers a beer, a glass of yaa dong and a special-mix CD. More information from www.zudrangmarecords.com.

You can find only one or two Angkanang tracks on YouTube and there's a short, two-minute biography in Thai on her, but that's about it. If you want to listen to her music before the event, you can always go down to one of the bigger Mere Mai, Mere Pleng stores in Pantip or on the ground floor of Mah Boon Krong, but if you can't find any there I recommend a trip to one of the big CD/DVD/VCD stores at the side of Klong Thom Plaza in Klong Thom market, just off Charoen Krung Road in Chinatown. Some of those stores have all the reissued early work from great singers like Angkanang and most of the major luk thung stars _ a good place to stock up on 1970s-era molam and luk thung. And if you want to find some vinyl, you can check out the record stores on Charoen Krung while you're in the neighbourhood.

I'll be playing one or two Angkanang tracks on my new World Beat radio show, which comes out tomorrow on the Zudrangma Records site.

The eighth Borneo Jazz Festival, previously known as the Miri Jazz Festival, will be held on May 10 and 11 in the grounds of the Park City Everly Hotel in Miri, Sarawak. The event has grown enormously over the past eight years and the organisers expect some 9,000 jazz fans to turn up this year. Headlining the festival will be that amazingly eclectic blues outfit Hazmat Modine, a band I raved about in this column a few years back when they brought out their last album, Cicada.

Also attending Borneo Jazz will be Jump4Joy from Sweden, Swedish a cappella outfit The Nylons, The Asian All Star Power Quartet and the Scott Martin Latin Soul Band from the US. Visit www.jazzborneo.com.

Another neglected US R'n'B artist, guitarist and singer/songwriter Barbara Lynn, surfed onto the World Beat desk last week. An R'n'B fan gave me a copy of Lynn's compilation A Good Woman: The Complete Tribe & Jet Singles 1966-1978 (Kent, USA) and it has been a revelation! Lynn was one of the very few female African-American singers at that time to write her own material. I was aware of her biggest hit, You'll Lose A Good Thing, but had no idea just how many different styles she performed.

A terrific left-handed lead and rhythm guitarist _ which must have made her pretty unique during the period the compilation covers _ Lynn is equally at home playing gut-bucket blues, straight 50s R'n'B, deep soul or even guitar-led disco. This excellent compilation provides a fascinating alternative snapshot of African-American music from the late 1960s to the late 1970s.

There are plenty of her tracks on YouTube that are well worth checking out. Highly recommended.


This column can be contacted at: clewley.john@gmail.com

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