Filed under: India
Information. Much like history, it depends on who you ask. And everyone has different story. You know the saying, “written in stone”? Well, it’s not a solid thing. It’s very fluid. You pick up little bits here and there, learning as you go. And just when you think you’ve got it, something will come along and change what you think you know.
It goes completely against the obsessive compulsive nature of the record collector. There’s supposed to be a list. You get all the records on the list, and then you’re done. Mission accomplished. But when it comes to records from far flung corners of the world, it’s not that simple.
I thought I had all of the information I needed when I wrote the liner notes for the Bollywood Steel Guitar disc for Sublime Frequencies. I was positive that I had found every steel guitar player in India and had included them in the compilation. I was wrong.
Even though I asked everyone I could find about the players and their records, I still did not have all of the pieces of the puzzle. Since then, I have discovered a whole slew of other players – some only recorded Classical Tagore songs, but others recorded Filmi songs as well – dating back to the 40s all of the way up to the present. Besides Kazi Aniruddha, Kazi Arindam, Gautam Dasgupta, Sunil Ganguly, S. Hazarasingh, Charanjit Singh and Van Shipley – who were included on the Bollywood Steel Guitar disc – there was Mohon Bhattacharya, Himanshu Biswas, Barum Kumar Pal, Batuk Nandy, Sujit Nath, Robin Paul, Dipankar Sen Gupta… And who knows? There could be more.
As I have said before, there is no book you can go look this stuff up in. Well, that may not be true. But if there is one, I’m not the only one looking for it – especially when it comes to records from India. Karl-Michael Schneider maintains a site that is trying to catalog all of the releases that were issued by the The Gramophone Company Ltd. While there were other small labels like Hindusthan and Megaphone up until about the 40s and then Concord, Polydor and Super Cassettes popped up in the 80s, The Gramophone Company of India had a virtual monopoly on recordings in India for almost all of the 1900s. According to the Society of Indian Record Collectors, it has been estimated that during the last century that about half a million different titles were released in India. And since they were pressed in numbers from as few five hundred to a few hundred thousand copies – many of these recordings remain unheard by more than just a few people.
As for Barum Kumar Pal, this seems to be his only release. Of course… I could be wrong.
Catalog number 2392 899 on Polydor of India, released 1979.
Filed under: India
♬ Santa Clause Is Coming To Town
Even though it is sometimes referred to as Hindustan, not everyone in India is Hindu. Granted, over eighty percent is Hindu, and another thirteen percent are Muslim. As of a 2001 census, only 2.341% are Christian. But, that’s still over twenty four million people. That being said, India is not exactly the first place that pops into your mind when it comes to Christmas Music.
All I have been able to find out about Jayram Acharya, is that he released an album entitled “Sitar Goes Latin” with Enoch Daniels (who is credited for the arrangements on this record) in 1969. Also, a single with “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town“ and “White Christmas“ was recently issued on the British Jazzman label.
Here are the liner notes to the record:
Come December, a strange spirit pervades in every corner of the globe – the spirit of Christmas. The universality of this spirit brings us closer to the oft dreamt concept of one world.
An integral part of Christmas is the Christmas music which, over a period of centuries, has also acquired global popularity.
Four of the most popular Christmas songs which, centuries ago, originated in the Western World, are presented on this disc on a musical instrument of India, the sitar, which is also originated centuries ago. While the Christmas songs reached India several centuries ago, it is only now, several centuries later, that the sound of sitar has reached the Western World and is considered the most exciting sound of today.
Christmas music on the sitar – a memorable presentation for a memorable occasion.
Catalog number EMOE. 503 on Odeon / The Gramophone Company Ltd., released 1967.
Filed under: India
Bollywood film music of India is commonly refered to as “filmi music” (from Hindi, meaning “of films”). Songs from Bollywood movies are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers, with the actors then lip synching the words to the song on-screen, often while dancing. Playback singers are prominently featured in the opening credits and have their own fans who will go to an otherwise lackluster movie just to hear their favourites. Their songs can make or break a film and usually do.
Songs typically comment on the action taking place in the movie, in several ways. Sometimes, a song is worked into the plot, so that a character has a reason to sing; other times, a song is an externalisation of a character’s thoughts, or presages an event that has not occurred yet in the plot of the movie. In this case, the event is almost always two characters falling in love.
Bollywood films have always used what are now called “item numbers“. A physically attractive female character (the “item girl”), often completely unrelated to the main cast and plot of the film, performs a catchy song and dance number in the film. In older films, the “item number” may be performed by a courtesan (tawaif) dancing for a rich client or as part of a cabaret show. The dancer Helen Jairag Richardson Khan was famous for her cabaret numbers. In modern films, item numbers may be inserted as discotheque sequences, dancing at celebrations, or as stage shows.
As for Charanjit Singh, there is not a whole lot of information available. According to the liner notes of his “One Man Show” album which was recorded in 1977, he had apparently been playing live for two decades. But his first single was not released until 1973. Unlike other performers who chose to pay tribute to the songs of Bollywood, Charanjit played a variety of instruments. He would feature either bass, steel guitar, the electric violin or the Transicord electric accordion as the prominent instrument on each song. He would eventually switch to the synthesizer, covering entire soundtracks. He also recorded at least one non-Filmi record, “Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat” in 1982.
Charanjit Singh has been featured on Bombay Connection’s “The Bombay Connection Vol. 1: Funk from Bollywood Action Thrillers 1977-1984” and Sublime Frequencies‘ “Bollywood Steel Guitar”. If you any further information, please contact me.
Catalog number S/MOCE 4204 on Odeon / EMI of India, manufactured & distributed by The Gramophone Company of India Limited in 1975. No other information is available.
Filed under: India
♬ Kazi Aniruddha • Main Hoon Pyar Tera
♬ Kazi Arindam • Fever
The term “Bollywood” originally referred to Bombay’s (now known as Mumbai) Hindi language film industry. Although there are a number of other studios that produce films in other languages, more recently the definition has been expanded in the West to describe pretty much all films produced on the sub-continent. But where in most countries a film’s soundtrack would merely be used as a promotional tool for the film, in India film music has become an industry unto itself with playback singers and dance numbers. The music is just as important as the film and lives on long after the film has left the theaters. These songs are, for the most part, the pop music of India.
As with most popular music, other artists sometimes recorded cover versions of these songs. Of these musicians, a small number specialized in instrumental arrangements and created what could be called the elevator music of India. While there were a few who used the harmonium or ‘mouth organ’, the most popular instrument used in these “instrumental favorites” was the steel guitar.
The earliest known report of anyone playing slide guitar was Gabriel Davion, a native of India who had been kidnapped by Portuguese sailors and was brought to Hawaii in 1876. Of course, there are Indian string instruments like the gotuvadyam and the vichitra vina that utilize slide known to have existed since the 11th century. But it was not until Ernest Ka’ai and his Royal Hawaiian Troubadours’ toured in 1919 before the slide guitar was introduced to India.
Not much is known about Kazi Aniruddha, except that he was the youngest son of revolutionary Bengali poet and musician Kazi Nazrul Islam. He released about two dozen songs before his death in 1974. And with the exception of a handful of film tunes in 1984, all of Kazi Arindam recordings were of Tagore songs, many of which he did with violinist Debshankar Roy. Although, he did produce a couple of records by Dipankar Sen Gupta, another steel guitarist who records Bollywood tunes. Whether or not the two Kazi’s were related is something that I’ve never been able to clear up…
The song Main Hoon Pyar Tera by Kazi Aniruddha is included on the Bollywood Steel Guitar compilation on Sublime Frequencies. Van Shipley, S. Hazarasingh, Sunil Ganguly, Charanjit Singh, Gautam Dasgupta, as well as Kazi Arindam are also featured on the disc.
Catalog number S/MOCE 3022 EMI of India, manufactured & distributed by The Gramophone Company of India Limited in 1984.
Filed under: India
The Tremolos were from apparently from Madras, which is the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India.
For the most part, the majority of the music produce in India, is either Filmi or Classical.
Filmi is the music of India’s film industry, the most well known is the Hindi music of Mumbai (formely Bombay, and refered to as Bollywood). But since there are 23 official languages in Indian, there are many other studios, most notable are Tamil in Kodambakkam, Telugu in Hyderabad, Malayalam in Kerala, and Kannada in Karnataka as well as others.
The two main streams of Indian Classical music are: Hindustani music from North India and Carnatic music from South India. The prime themes of Hindustani music are Rasleela (Hindu devotionals) of Krishna and Nature in all its splendour. Carnatic music is similar to Hindustani music in that it is mostly improvised, but it is much more influenced by theory and has stricter rules. Classical music of India is best represented by such musicans as Ravi Shankar, L. Subramaniam, Ali Akbar Khan and Ustad Vilayat Khan.
But popular music that falls outside of the film industry and Classical music, is not very common in India. You could probably count the number of rock ‘n’ roll records released during the 60’s and early 70’s on one hand. And most of that were covers of American and British songs, as can be found on the Simla Beat records of 1970 and 71.
I have not been able to find out anything about the band. If you have any information, please contact me.
Catalog number NE. 1007 on HMV of India, released in 1969.
Filed under: India
Sunil Ganguly was born at Sonamura village in Tripura, which is a state in North East India. He was one of the first musicians to popularize guitar in Bengali music in the early 1960’s, but then he switched to mainly release recordings of popular Bollywood songs on steel guitar. He is widely considered to be the best and set the standard for all who followed him. It has been said that “his instrument seemed to sing like a human voice”.
Surprisingly, the best information I was able to find was from Answers.com
One of the most respected Hawaiian electric guitarists in the Indian sub-continent is the Late Sunil Ganguly. Coming from a modest background, Ganguly developed his very own style of playing the instrument. No matter what he played, his instrument seemed to sing like a human voice. For years his recordings have formed the basis of many aspiring guitarists in the country in terms of style and technique. Nuances were a child’s play for Ganguly and he never went overboard doing it.
Ganguly’s repertoire ranged from classical based songs to Hindi movie hits and from traditional folk songs to those composed by the greats like Dr. Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Major labels like HMV and Concord Records have recorded and released at least one album of Sunil Ganguly every year starting from late sixties / early seventies till about a year or two before he passed away.
There were years when Radio Ceylon and All India Radio used to regularly broadcast his recordings which actually used to be a motivating factor for many aspiring young guitarists.
The Indian style of playing the Hawaiian Guitar is based around Ganguly’s style and most of his contemporaries used to discreetly copy his style or claim to be based around Ganguly’s school of playing.
Many references to Ganguly can be found on the internet and there are some interesting comparisons made. Perhaps it was due to Sunil Ganguly that the Hawaiian guitar rose to popularity in India but alas in these days of electronic music, the instrument’s popularity has dwindled. Of course, there are still some who would like to promote the instrument, post-Ganguly. Newer styles and newer techniques have come up and some of them are again from India (Brij Bhushan Kabra, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt etc.).
This song was originally from the 1978 movie Don, which was a very popular Bollywood film that has reach cult status outside of India. The movie was recently remade as Don – The Chase Begins Again in 2006.
Since the initial post, this song was included on the “Bollywood Steel Guitar” compilation on Sublime Frequencies.
Sunil Ganguly passed away at the age of 62 in Calcutta in 1999.
Catalog number S/MOCE 3015 EMI of India, manufactured and distributed by The Gramophone Company of India Limited in 1979.
Filed under: India
♬ Escape
The Mustangs were from India.
The majority of the music produce in India, is either Filmi or Classical.
Filmi is the music of India’s film industry, the most well known is the Hindi music of Mumbai (formely Bombay, and refered to as Bollywood). But since there are 23 official languages in Indian, there are many other studios, most notable are Tamil in Kodambakkam, Telugu in Hyderabad, Malayalam in Kerala, and Kannada in Karnataka as well as others.
The two main streams of Indian Classical music are: Hindustani music from North India and Carnatic music from South India. The prime themes of Hindustani music are Rasleela (Hindu devotionals) of Krishna and Nature in all its splendour. Carnatic music is similar to Hindustani music in that it is mostly improvised, but it is much more influenced by theory and has stricter rules. Classical music of India is best represented by such musicans as Ravi Shankar, L. Subramaniam, Ali Akbar Khan and Ustad Vilayat Khan.
But popular music that falls outside of the film industry and Classical music, is not very common in India. You could probably count the number of rock ‘n’ roll records released during the 60’s and early 70’s on one hand. And most of that were covers of American and British songs, as can be found on the Simla Beat records of 1970 and 71.
I have not been able to find any information about The Mustangs. It says that it was written by Danny Hamilton (which doesn’t sound like an Indian name to me, but who knows?).
If you have any information, please contact me.
Catalog number 45-POPV. 8086 on HMV of India. No release date listed.
Filed under: India
S. Hazarasingh was from India.
The term “Bollywood” originally referred to Bombay’s (now known as Mumbai) Hindi language film industry. Although there are a number of other studios that produce films in other languages, more recently the definition has been expanded in the West to describe pretty much all films produced on the sub-continent. But where in most countries a film’s soundtrack would merely be used as a promotional tool for the film, in India film music has become an industry unto itself with playback singers and dance numbers. The music is just as important as the film and lives on long after the film has left the theaters. These songs are, for the most part, the pop music of India.
As with most popular music, other artists sometimes recorded cover versions of these songs. Of these musicians, a small number specialized in instrumental arrangements and created what could be called the elevator music of India. While there were a few who used the harmonium or ‘mouth organ’, the most popular instrument used in these “instrumental favorites” was the steel guitar.
The earliest known report of anyone playing slide guitar was Gabriel Davion, a native of India who had been kidnapped by Portuguese sailors and was brought to Hawaii in 1876. Of course, there are Indian string instruments like the gotuvadyam and the vichitra vina that utilize slide known to have existed since the 11th century. But it was not until Ernest Ka’ai and his Royal Hawaiian Troubadours’ toured in 1919 before the slide guitar was introduced to India.
S. Hazarasingh started out in the film studio orchestra as early as 1941, and had played on the original version of “Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu.” On many of his records, he is listed as “S. Hazra Singh”. Apparently there was a popular comedian in India named “Hazara Singh”, and he changed it to prevent confusion. I do not know how many 78’s he may have recorded, but I have seen two singles from 1964 and 1967. He didn’t release his first solo album until 1966, and only released two more before he passed away in 1971.
Since the initial posting, these songs have been included on the “Bollywood Steel Guitar” compilation on Sublime Frequencies.
This is a Malaysian pressing of this record. There is no indication of the company that pressed it, but the catalog number is RSLP 2012. The Indian version on HMV of India has the same cover, except for a red background instead of the blue background and was released in 1969.
