Pan Ron

about

Pen Ran (Khmer: ប៉ែន រ៉ន), also commonly known as Pan Ron in some Romanized sources intended for English-speaking audiences, was a Cambodian singer and songwriter who was at the height of her popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s. Known particularly for her western rock and soul influences, animated dancing, and risque lyrics, Pen Ran has been described by the New York Times as a "worldly, wise-cracking foil" to the more restrained Cambodian pop singers of her era. She disappeared during the Khmer Rouge genocide and her exact fate is unknown. Very little is known of Pen Ran's personal history. It has been established that she was from Battambang and attended the same school as the younger Ros Serey Sothea, another popular singer of the same era. Pen Ran had a sister named Pen Ram (sometimes Romanized as Pan Rom) who was also a singer in the later years of the Cambodian psychedelic rock scene. In the 1960s, Cambodian Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, a musician himself, encouraged the development of popular music in Cambodia. Initially, pop records from France and Latin America were imported into the country and became popular, inspiring a flourishing pop music scene based in Phnom Penh and led by singers like Sinn Sisamouth. Pen Ran was an early entrant in this music scene, with the hit song "Pka Kabass" in 1963, but she became a national star when she began recording with Sinn Sisamouth in 1966. Starting in the late 1960s Ran recorded many collaborations with Sisamouth an