Sinn Sisamouth was born in Stung Treng Province, the son of Sinn Leang and mother Seb Bunlei. One or both of Sisamouth's parents were partially Lao. Most sources list his year of birth as 1935, though some list 1932. Sisamouth's father was a soldier during the Colonial Cambodia period and also served as prison warden in Battambang Province. His father died when he was a child and his mother then remarried.
Sisamouth learned to play stringed instruments at the age of six or seven, and showed a natural singing talent. He was often invited to perform music at school functions. At about age 16 he graduated from primary school and moved to Phnom Penh to study medicine; this plan was apparently meant to please his parents when his true goal was to become a musician. He began composing his own songs around this time.
Sisamouth graduated from medical school around the time that Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953. He initially worked in a Phnom Penh hospital as a nurse, but was soon hired by the Cambodian national radio station as a singer with its band. Around this time, Sisamouth married his cousin Keo Thorng Gnu in an arranged marriage, and they eventually had four children.
Many of Sinn Sisamouth's master recordings were either destroyed by the Khmer Rouge regime in its efforts to eliminate foreign influences from Cambodian society, or were lost due to decay. However, collectors and entrepreneurs located and reproduced copies of some of his recordings after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Some of his songs have been covered by modern Cambodian singers, such as "Srey Sros Khmeng" by Suong Chantha in 2002. Western listeners were introduced to his work starting in the late 1990s with the release of the Cambodian Rocks bootleg album, followed by the soundtrack to the film City of Ghosts.
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