Gimme That Ole Time Thai Music. Gimme That Ole Time '45 to '63 Thai Pop!

[OldChinaHam]

Sorry Gentlemen, unless you are some sort of Thai expert or researcher who has studied the culture here, then you really probably cannot help us too much,

By yourselves anyway.

You will either need to be an expert in Thai culture, or you will need to ask your WIFE to call her MOTHER!

Yeah, I know this might be tough.

But it will be worth it because this will get those all important channels of communication opened up a bit.

What I am asking for is SIMPLE, not difficult.

I just want you to ask your wife to ask her mother what music she liked to listen to when she was a teen.

Or, you might need to ask your wife to ask her mother to ask HER mother. I dunno, this depends on the age of everybody, and this we need not know.

So it is very straightforward really, what were these young girls listening to when they were growing up? What kind of Pop Music? What singers?

The CUTOFF here (or Limits as some might say) is:

1945<

<1965

(Hope I got those little arrows right.)

So you might need to ask your wife's mother's mother's mother if you got a young wife, like I know some of you do (and good for you, too (again, we do NOT need to know this!)

Many songs we hear played on the radio by vendors on the street or in the small shops, by the old dudes and little old ladies, are of this genre.

Personally, I prefer the female vocalists.

We are looking for popular music here, not the temple music or other instrumental music.

I am talking about the popular music these girls listened to on the radio that would be analogous maybe to Frank Sinatra in the west.

This music is surprisingly interesting when you really listen to it.

Probably in the 1950's we are looking at a lot of piano music if it follows the Chinese style.

Or maybe it won't.

Once we have the name of the artist or other helpful info, then finding it on YouTube should be a piece of cake.

For this one, please write down the name in both Romanized and also those strange to some Thai characters.

(Don't write much in Thai characters. Just the name of the artist and song, and other identifying remarks like the band, or the label, together WITH Romanized form to the best of your ability.)

I tell ya, your mother -n-law is going to adore you for being solicitous enough to take an interest in her childhood.

The more the better!

The more the merrier, this could get seriously interesting,

If any of you have any interest in the Thai culture.

And I am sure some of you do.

This is an example of what I think we might be looking for:

VINTAGE THAI MUSIC - Suthep Wongkamhaeng c.1950

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcO8YEStp5c

Sire. you can find it on YouTube, no sweat.

But, think of your Mother-in-law and how disappointed she will be when she hears you did not include and consult her, or worse, her mother?

Also, if you are one of those who lives on a Farm with Chickens, and other animals, you may have nothing better to do, and your Mother-in-law might live with you. So what have you got to lose?

To me, this old Thai music is rather beautiful.

If you enjoy a diverse interest in music, some of you will be able to learn something here.

FOR ALL YOU EXPERTS in Thai music of this period, please do not hesitate to CHIME IN with any erudite explanatory observations, but please be a true expert and do not make light of this worthy endeavor.

Listen to the song I provided here.

Then ask your Wife's mom's mom.

Edited July 14, 2013 by OldChinaHam

[cpofc]

No replies yet? I notice all the action is over at the 'Yingluck's Thainess' thread. Which, it seems, is a great way for many to start their week. Plenty of spite , hate and vitriol. Gets the juices flowing.

If there was only one thing I loved about Thailand , it would be their love of music. I believe music plays an important part in peoples lives. I put a lot of the problems in the West down to the fact that we lost the 'music'.

Personally I would rather talk about music. Calming the savage beast(s), than whinge about what constitutes being a good ambassador for your country when you're studying overseas.

My Thai (musician) friends and I will be attending a 'Woodstock' commemorative concert and 'jam' on the 27th July. I am so looking forward to a great night out.

Sorry I can't provide the answers you seek because my 77 YO Thai MIL's taste for music lacks 'Thainess'...

here are a few of her favourites.

Johnny Tillotson

Cliff Richard

Nat King Cole

Pat Boone

Perry Como

Elvis

[rak sa_ngop]

There are a few shops dealing in Thai records (45, 33, maybe even 78 for all I know) on Charoen Krung Road near Old Siam Plaza. There is even one shop diaplaying a montage of many old record covers although what period exactly I do not know. Probably worth a look if you are really interested.

[pattayadingo]

A long long time ago, your mother should know........

[OldChinaHam]

There are a few shops dealing in Thai records (45, 33, maybe even 78 for all I know) on Charoen Krung Road near Old Siam Plaza. There is even one shop diaplaying a montage of many old record covers although what period exactly I do not know. Probably worth a look if you are really interested.

Interested? Yes. If we pay attention, we can still hear this music and songs being sung in Thai on the radios of street vendors, shopkeepers, noodle stands, and tailors in many places in the city. This pop Thai music I find beautiful and of course deeply reminiscent of the Thailand of 50 years ago.

But how would I go to a Thai record store and be able to choose what the girls were really listening to way back when? I would not know. The shopkeeper would (maybe) not know. I would be lost. Just as you would be lost going to a western pop oldies store and trying to figure out what people really liked, if you had never heard western music, like I have never heard much Thai pop music from the 1945 to '65 era. (It is true that I have heard a lot of Chinese pop from this period, but I still would not be able to pick it out from a record store in Beijing, no way.) THANK YOU! for this good suggestion, though. And of course I will be happy to visit some good record stores selling good Thai pop from the 40s, to 60s.

***(If you have an album that you loved to listen to from 1945 to 1965, please upload it to YouTube, and then link here to your YouTube submission. I forgot to mention this in the "preamble" above.)

Sorry for the above short message in bold type, but I remissfully forgot to include it in the Topic, above.

Edited July 15, 2013 by OldChinaHam

[rgs2001uk]

This is what my mrs and her mother listen to, brilliant stuff.

In just about every mall there will be a stall selling these oldies.

Last week on the way to Pattaya the mrs bought an mp3 cd collection of this stuff for 89 baht, bargain.

[rgs2001uk]

Not relevant to your question, but love the lyrics to this, gives an insight into the way the locals think

Read the comments, my answer to the first, took tong.

[OldChinaHam]

No replies yet? I notice all the action is over at the 'Yingluck's Thainess' thread. Which, it seems, is a great way for many to start their week. Plenty of spite , hate and vitriol. Gets the juices flowing.

If there was only one thing I loved about Thailand , it would be their love of music. I believe music plays an important part in peoples lives. I put a lot of the problems in the West down to the fact that we lost the 'music'.

Personally I would rather talk about music. Calming the savage beast(s), than whinge about what constitutes being a good ambassador for your country when you're studying overseas.

My Thai (musician) friends and I will be attending a 'Woodstock' commemorative concert and 'jam' on the 27th July. I am so looking forward to a great night out.

Sorry I can't provide the answers you seek because my 77 YO Thai MIL's taste for music lacks 'Thainess'...

here are a few of her favourites.

Johnny Tillotson

Cliff Richard

Nat King Cole

Pat Boone

Perry Como

Elvis

Thank you very much for your good encouragement,

Actually, this was exactly what I was looking for, but with the Thai pop vocalists instead. You have the period correct though. And as you say, then as now, so many probably loved to listen to, and watch, what was coming out of NYC and Hollywood.

Hopefully many more here will wish to contribute information and recordings of music and songs of that "era", sung and produced by Thai artists, but also as you may be saying, one can lead them to water.

[OldChinaHam]

Tks rgs2001uk,

Very, very nice.

Just out of curiosity, was this considered pop in the 60s?

In other words, if we had walked into a few shops or restaurants in Bangkok at the time, is this much the type of sound we would have heard?

Thanks.

[cpofc]

No replies yet? I notice all the action is over at the 'Yingluck's Thainess' thread. Which, it seems, is a great way for many to start their week. Plenty of spite , hate and vitriol. Gets the juices flowing.

If there was only one thing I loved about Thailand , it would be their love of music. I believe music plays an important part in peoples lives. I put a lot of the problems in the West down to the fact that we lost the 'music'.

Personally I would rather talk about music. Calming the savage beast(s), than whinge about what constitutes being a good ambassador for your country when you're studying overseas.

My Thai (musician) friends and I will be attending a 'Woodstock' commemorative concert and 'jam' on the 27th July. I am so looking forward to a great night out.

Sorry I can't provide the answers you seek because my 77 YO Thai MIL's taste for music lacks 'Thainess'...

here are a few of her favourites.

Johnny Tillotson

Cliff Richard

Nat King Cole

Pat Boone

Perry Como

Elvis

Thank you very much for your good encouragement,

Actually, this was exactly what I was looking for, but with the Thai pop vocalists instead. You have the period correct though. And as you say, then as now, so many probably loved to listen to, and watch, what was coming out of NYC and Hollywood.

Hopefully many more here will wish to contribute information and recordings of music and songs of that "era", sung and produced by Thai artists, but also as you may be saying, one can lead them to water.

Of course I reckon you know this anyway, but HM The King Of Thailand is an accomplished jazz musician in his own right and has jammed with the best of them in his lifetime..

take a look at this article from the BKK Post in 2006

http://www.bangkokpost.com/60yrsthrone/jazzy/

[OldChinaHam]

That is great about the King and Jazz!

I actually did not know. And I did not know that Jazz was that popular in Thailand during that period. I think of New Orleans, New York, France. especially Paris when I think about Jazz. It was often easier to find the best live Jazz in the clubs in France, I have heard, than in NYC.

[Goshawk]

OP... you've never heard of 'The King' - Suraphol Sombatcharoen? Far too many to list but here's his *best (and last) classic. 99.9% of senior Thai's will concur....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsxLZsZeVmQ

*imho... - "16 Years of Our Past"

[PaullyW]

[PaullyW]

[PaullyW]

[PaullyW]

[OldChinaHam]

Goshawk---

"OP... you've never heard of 'The King' - Suraphol Sombatcharoen? Far too many to list but here's his *best (and last) classic. 99.9% ofsenior Thai's will concur...."

Really, very unfortunately, there is too much that I do not know about Thailand, its culture, language, and people, but I have had an interest for at least 45 years, and I am trying to make up for the lost time which I might better have spent learning, now.

I have learned more about Thailand and jazz, just here, than I ever knew, so you can see just how very poor was my education.

Edited July 16, 2013 by OldChinaHam

[OldChinaHam]

Thank you for all the good comments so far, and to Goshawk thank you, too, and of course I know about Thailand's King, I just was happy to have learned that he is also so interested in playing serious jazz. This is a bit of information I would not have known if I did not start this Topic.

I may know very, very little about Thai Pop popular during the years I have listed above, but this is why I took the time to post this topic, because I wish to learn, I love Asian music, I have never spent much time listening to Pop Thai music.

I do not know if people here will really get into the spirit of this Topic, and start asking their relatives or their friends to please suggest some good pop titles/selections that fit the genre described above, it's gonna be good, all I can do is hope.

Maybe I did not clarify what I was hoping might be posted here.

Here is one example of the music that seems to fit.

Also, who does not like it?

I have listened to a lot of Asian pop music which was sung and broadcast on the radio during this time, and which is still played sometimes on the radio, and which I have heard during my time in Asia. I have never made a study of it. But I sort of love it. It makes me feel like I am in Asia in the 50's, a time I was unfortunate not to have been able to see, for real. I was in America at that time.

So please do your best to contribute things we can learn more about Thai culture from listening to.

For this following selection, I asked the old lady at the noodle shop to suggest a few singers.

She wrote two lines in Thai, and I typed them into YouTube.

This is the result.

I hope and know that members of your extended family can do better to provide the names of "Thai songs on the radio" and maybe also tell us about them.

Certainly, someone out there can do a far better job than I can do with my lack of knowledge, and select interesting representative pop music of the time.

Thanks!

Krap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=517kw8U8r4I

Edited July 19, 2013 by OldChinaHam

[OldChinaHam]

The following "I think" was suggested by my soup noodle lady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qgbsDQ6yV0E

[OldChinaHam]

Again, My Noodle Lady's choice I "Think"

One further advantage to listening if you truly love it.

It helps with your Thai language acquisition I "think", I will see and tell you a year from now, Krap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mKttBqpSdoI

[klubex99]

Here is a snippet of Wikipedia and its explanation of what dominated the music charts in Thailand. (italics added).

By the 1930s, however, Western classical music, showtunes, jazz and tango were popular. Soon, jazz grew to dominate Thai popular music, and Khru Eua Sunthornsanan soon set up the first Thai jazz band. The music he soon helped to invent along with influential band Suntharaporn was called pleng Thai sakorn, which incorporated Thai melodies with Western classical music. This music continued to evolve into luk grung, a romantic music that was popular with the upper-class. King Bhumibol is an accomplished jazz musician and composer.

Phleng pheua chiwit

Main article: Phleng phuea chiwit

By the 1960s, Western rock was popular and Thai artists began imitating bands like Cliff Richard & the Shadows; this music was called wong shadow, and it soon evolved into a form of Thai pop called string. Among the groups that emerged from this period was The Impossibles. The '70s also saw Rewat Buddhinan beginning to use the Thai language in rock music as well as the rise of protest songs called phleng pheua chiwit (songs for life).

The earliest phleng pheua chiwit band was called Caravan, and they were at the forefront of a movement for democracy. In 1976, police and right wing activists attacked students at Thammasat University; Caravan, along with other bands and activists, fled for the rural hills. There, Caravan continued playing music for local farmers, and wrote songs that would appear on their later albums.

In the 1980s, phleng pheua chiwit re-entered the mainstream with a grant of amnesty to dissidents. Bands like Carabao became best-sellers and incorporated sternly nationalistic elements in their lyrics. By the 1990s, phleng pheua chiwit had largely fallen from the top of the Thai charts, though artists like Pongsit Kamphee continued to command a large audience.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Thailand

[OldChinaHam]

Here is a snippet of Wikipedia and its explanation of what dominated the music charts in Thailand. (italics added).

By the 1930s, however, Western classical music, showtunes, jazz and tango were popular. Soon, jazz grew to dominate Thai popular music, and Khru Eua Sunthornsanan soon set up the first Thai jazz band. The music he soon helped to invent along with influential band Suntharaporn was called pleng Thai sakorn, which incorporated Thai melodies with Western classical music. This music continued to evolve into luk grung, a romantic music that was popular with the upper-class. King Bhumibol is an accomplished jazz musician and composer.

Phleng pheua chiwit

In addition to good examples from the Thai jazz artists, especially the counterparts, if any, of U.S. jazz vocalists of the period, I wonder too if there were not some fine Thai vocalists who were singing Pop Thai music which had its roots more in Thai music tradition.

Sometimes, I would think, there was more of a "amalgamation" of East and West, which created a sound that was unique to Thailand, but was also recognizably influenced by the sound coming from the U.S. and UK, EU.

During the early 1970s, around 1971 for example, when I was a lot younger and did not know any better, I would turn on the radio in Thailand, spin the radio dial, and then stop listening. There was nothing I could find that was familiar to my ears. I recall there were a few radio stations such as VOA, or probably the BBC, and maybe there was a U.S. Armed Forces radio station (This I do not recall), but basically nothing that a young man from the States would be interested in listening to, just a dumb kid so to speak.

But again, I am not interested in the '70s, only the period from '45 to '65.

And the more female and male Thai crooners the better.

Remember that Sinatra was a real crooner during part of that period

So sort of like a Thai Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday maybe, but Thai.