Starting in the late 1950s, 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 music scene based in Phnom Penh and led by singers like Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran or Sinn Sisamouth, with hits such as ""Violon Sneha"". By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the scene was further influenced by Western rock and roll and soul music via U.S. armed forces radio that had been broadcast into nearby South Vietnam. This resulted in a unique sound in which Western pop and rock were combined with Khmer vocal techniques.