Pumpuang Duangjan

Über Pumpuang Duangjan

Pumpuang Duangjan, the Queen of Luk Thung, was the singer who modernised Thai country music for the 1980s. Born Rampueng Jitharn in a Suphan Buri rice-farming family, she joined a touring luk thung troupe at thirteen and was the country's biggest pop star by twenty. Sao Na Sang Faen and Krasae Khao Ma Si fused electric instrumentation with traditional luk thung structure and made her the form's first crossover act. She died of lupus at thirty in 1992; her funeral procession in Suphan Buri drew an estimated 200,000 mourners and is one of the largest public gatherings in modern Thai history. Her birthplace is now a national museum.