morlam styles?

[thai3]

 

Had a long talk with a chef in local thai place UK, he is a big morlam fan so I pinned him down on just how many styles and what the names are, he even sang the different types. What he told me did not quite agree with what you find on the web but for any interested here is what he said.

Originally morlam styles were, and still are asscoiated with the towns in issan and these main styles are

 

khon kaen (-banyen)

kalasin- (honey sri issan)

ubon- (nok noi)

salakham??

and added to that phoot thai style which sounds very characteristic, hey ya hey ya heya hey ya. etc. He said kalasin style is the most popular, morlam ruem which I thought was kalasin style he said is just a term for all morlam.

 

Morlam cing is a modern style, he said only 10 years but I think it's longer than that as siriporn says her father was a cing performer. Anyway cing is usually a boy and girl singing dirty lyrics, small and somewhat looked down on section of morlam. Others of course say it deals with more contemporary issues and there is a big red book all about that from khorat uni in the shops. Not sure if cing is a growing area of the market, but the chef was very dismissive and added what a lot of falang think of as cing, is in fact not cing at all. Anyway thought I'd pass on the chefs tale who if to believed has seen just about every thai singer dead and alive-I still did not get the thai names to the styles of the districts, if anyone can add or include more singers to different styles please comment. Singers like Jintara of course mix styles as well as singing luktung , and now even pop. While in the restaurant honey sri issan's most famous song came on- kalasin style I offered, ha ha, no seems this was never a morlam song but a luktung song which she sang in a kalasin style, TIT -peter