WOMAD

Kong Nay & Ouch Savy

From Cambodia

Not for nothing is Kong Nay often referred to as the Ray Charles of Cambodia. There are very immediate similarities to Brother Ray – the dark glasses worn because of blindness and the ever-present smile worn because he’s managed to make a career from music. But there’s another reason. Kong Nay, like Ray, is a bluesman – his style, chapei, being a traditional music played on a two-stringed instrument and often drawing comparisons with the lonesome blues of the Mississippi Delta. Cambodia’s pre-eminent traditional singer, Kong Nay will be accompanied by his protégée Ouch Savy, one of chapei’s new revolutionaries who’s also lent her vocal talents to the Khmer pop sounds of that excellent Los Angeles band Dengue Fever. Not that, by collaborating with American bands, she’s turning her back on the music of her homeland. “There’s nothing wrong with popular music, but we Cambodians have to do something new for ourselves rather than merely copying other countries’ music.”