Saturday Night Classics-Black Magic Woman

It wasn't until the end of 1989 that I became aware of Black Magic Woman. I only recall the event because our family friends, who lived two houses down, held a wedding for their oldest daughter. It sounded fantastic—a moody, bluesy sound, except that I did not know then that that sound would be something called blues rock.

Anyway, I must have heard this song before. How could I not, as Black Magic Woman dominated wedding receptions in Cambodia throughout the 1980s and 1990s? In the middle of Phnom Penh or some other remote places in one of the provinces, if the wedding parties had money to hire live bands, Black Magic Woman would make an appearance at receptions. There were also two unique covers, one that sounded similar to the Fleetwood Mac original and another that sounded slightly jazzy, with an Afro-Cuban beat.

I once asked one of my father's chauffeurs, who had managed a band in his former life, and he told me that every guitarist fancied himself to be the next Mok Sivutha, one of the greatest guitarists from the pre-Khmer Rouge era. However, this did not explain the song's appeal, given there are many fantastic guitar-driven songs in the Khmer repertoire. It is hardly an exaggeration to argue that pre-1975 modern Khmer music can hold its own against any Western rock.

To this day, I have no idea why Black Magic Woman was a staple at Khmer wedding receptions. In the past 20 years, it has gradually faded away; the majority of bands today are composed of people in their 20s and early 30s.