Cambodia & Music : Liev Tuk, the Khmer artist who sang like James Brown
We do not know when he was born, or when he died. We do not know where he came from, or what became of him after April 1975. What remains of Liev Tuk is a handful of songs, a few minutes of footage shot for a Norodom Sihanouk film, and a name missing from the sleeve of the record that made him known in the West. He was, all the same, the most soulful voice of Cambodia's golden age.
Among the long list of artists cut down by the Khmer Rouge, some names have recovered a biography. Sinn Sisamouth has his legend, Ros Serey Sothea her stage musical, Pen Ran her reissues. Liev Tuk, sometimes spelled Liv Tek, has none of that. The available archives amount to a few lines, and most of what is known about him comes from the research carried out for the American documentary Don't Think I've Forgotten, released in 2015.
A voice like no other
The Cambodian scene of the 1960s was built on melody. Singers dealt in thwarted love, nostalgia, riverbanks. Guitars arrived in 1959 with Baksey Cham Krong, formed by the brothers Mol Kagnol and Mol Kamach and generally regarded as the country's first rock band. Twist, cha-cha-cha and then psychedelic rock followed, carried by imported records and by the American military radio signal spilling over from neighbouring Vietnam.
Liev Tuk took another road. His music drew on American rhythm and blues, soul and rock. Historians of Khmer music compare him to Wilson Pickett and James Brown, which is true of no other Cambodian singer of his generation. Sociologist LinDa Saphan, lead researcher on John Pirozzi's documentary, describes striking looks, swinging arms and a restless vocal style that sent teenage audiences wild.
Liev Tuk was no crooner. He was a performer, all movement, colour and speed. Set against the established singers of the day, often motionless behind a radio microphone, the contrast must have been startling.
A few minutes in a film by Prince Sihanouk
Most of the surviving footage of him comes from La Joie de Vivre (រស់ដោយសប្បាយ), written, produced and directed by Norodom Sihanouk. The prince's official filmography dates the film to 1968; other sources say 1969. Sihanouk wanted a modern picture, which meant musical numbers, and the kingdom sent its best. Sieng Dy, Chhoun Malai, Meas Samon, Mao Sareth, So Savoeun, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran and Liev Tuk each appear on screen.
Tuk is not even credited. Yet it is this sequence that John Pirozzi chose for his documentary, cutting it against a clip of Wilson Pickett. The comparison needs no commentary: the same footwork, the same energy, the same way of filling a stage.
A bootleg in New York, thirty years later
In 1994 an American tourist, Paul Wheeler, bought six cassettes at a market in Siem Reap and put together a personal compilation. A friend in New York who ran the underground label Parallel World decided to press a thousand copies on vinyl. The record was called Cambodian Rocks and came out in 1996. The pressing sold out, a CD version followed, with twenty-two tracks instead of thirteen.
On the sleeve: a charcoal rubbing of Angkor Wat. No artist names. No song titles. No recording dates. Reviewers were quick to call it a bootleg. The record nonetheless started everything: it was how the West discovered Khmer rock, and a dozen compilations followed in its wake.
Two Liev Tuk tracks are on it. “Rom Sue Sue” (រាំសូសូ), literally “dance soul soul”, which reviewers have likened to Booker T. and the M.G.'s “Hip-Hug-Her”, and “Sou Slarp Kroam Kombut Srey”, a duet with Yol Aularong. They sat there unattributed for years. When the album was reissued in 2003, the label kept the anonymous track list, even though several songs had by then been identified. The critic Mack Hagood took it to task publicly. Not one of the musicians, and not one of their families, has ever received a cent from those sales.
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Golden-age Khmer vinyl: most of the pre-1975 catalogue survives only as copies of copies.
What is still unknown
On the life of Liev Tuk, the sources stop there. No date of birth, no home province, no identified family, no published first-hand account. His disappearance is documented nowhere: as with almost every artist on the scene, it is assumed he did not survive the regime, though nothing allows it to be stated. His career, on the other hand, ended abruptly on 17 April 1975.
Since 2010 the Cambodian Vintage Music Archive, an American non-profit, has been gathering recordings and documentation from the period, reissuing tracks and helping rights holders recover their claims. Other labels have released properly credited compilations, with artist names, song titles and translations. In the United States, Lauren Yee's play Cambodian Rock Band has put these musicians back on stage.
Thirty years after a record on which he had no name, Liev Tuk has one again. Two songs are now credited to him.
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