The coming together of Alstom and Siemens in Europe, this week, to make the continent a front-runner in railway Technology is a watershed moment for the businesses. A similar hope has been expressed by Airtel , eyeing Reliance Communications, to meet as equals and forge ahead in the industry. This may become a watershed moment in Indian telecom history !
Bollywood has had a great tradition of pairs of composers giving music in films, each one being a giant in his own right. A team of music directors brings a lot of experience and a combination of their individual skills , making the scores more melodious and successful.
Let us have a recollection of the famous Music Director Duos which have graced the hindi film music scene, down the years.
One of the earliest combinations was that of Husnlal Bhagatram. They debuted with Chand ( 1944) and are considered to be the pioneers as a composer-duo. Their family name was Batish and one of their relative S.D.Batish also became a music director and singer later on.
Husnlal was an accomplished violinist and a good classical singer and Bhagatram was an ace harmonium player. They were the brothers of the famous composer of the 40's, Pandit Amarnath, and both worked as his assistants.
Pyar Ki Jeet and Badi Behan brought them centre-stage. They worked with an array of lyricists to give memorable songs. They also composed the famous song Suno suno ae duniya walon, Bapu ki ye amar kahani. They parted ways in 60s after their last venture Apsara ( 1961) This Rafi song from Pyar ki Jeet ( 1948) , written by Qamar Jalalabadi was a rage in its time.
Shankar Singh and Jaikishan Panchal came together to form the chart-busting duo of Shankar Jaikishan ( hereafter referred as SJ) and had an explosive debut with Barsaat ( 1949). SJ were the most flamboyant of all the composer-duos to have been in Bollywood. Their association with Raj Kapoor played a role in their success, no doubt. But it was their versatility to employ both western and classical music , as and when required, which was instrumental in getting them scores of projects. Each success created more work and in no time, SJ were in the top rung.
Shankar knew Tabla, Sitar, Accordion and Piano etc. Besides his work at Prithvi theatre, he also started working as an assistant to the leading composer duo of Husnlal Bhagatram. Jaikishan was adept at playing the harmonium.
The 50s and 60s saw SJ ruling the hindi film music scene unfettered. They were also instrumental in making the Yahoo star Shammi get his debonair dancer image, taking his stock higher. At the same time, their romantic compositions for Rajendra Kumar was a factor in Jubilee Kumar's success story.
SJ was a team which was known to compose different songs separately and still maintain their "joint" brand equity. This eventually led to differences between them, making the fissures visible . The untimely death of Jaikishan in 1971 cut short a partnership, but Shankar kept on using SJ as the Team Name even when he composed himself, in latter years.
Kalyanji Virji Shah had started off as a composer and continued solo for a few films like Post Box 999 and Samrat Chandragupt, before being joined by his younger brother Anandji Veerji Shah, to make the team known as Kalyanji Anandji. The duo worked their way up in the 50s and 60s , amidst stiff competition from stalwarts like Naushad, Sachin Dev Burman, Hemant Kumar and Shankar Jaikishan. They made their place, slowly but surely, carving a niche for themselves.
They were also instrumental in popularising stage shows and finding new musical talent, resulting in promoting a large number of fresh voices in Hindi films.
Sapan Sengupta and Jagmohan Bakshi were two singers in Salil Chaudhary's choir. Jagmohan had also given playback for Dev Anand in one film. The two debuted as a team in 1961. They had sporadic hits in the sixties and seventies, but could not make it to the big league despite hit songs like Phir wo bhooli si yaad aayi hai ( Rafi), Teri talash mein ( Asha), Ulfat mein zamane ki ( Kishore) and Main to har mod pe ( Mukesh). They kept on getting less projects and despite a good understanding of music, could not flourish.
Close on the heels, came another music director duo: Laxmikant Pyarelal. This team had an impressive debut in 1963 with Parasmani. They had a big hit in Rajshri's banner in Dosti ( 1964) and that paved the way for Laxmikant Kundalkar and Pyarelal Sharma to consolidate a tenure which was unprecedented. They were called LP, which also was an abbreviation for Long-Playing, indicative of their active period.
Laxmikant learned to play the mandolin and performed in Indian Classical instrumental music concerts to earn some money. Later, in the 1940s, he also learned violin from Husnlal (of the Husnlal Bhagatram fame).
Pyarelal was the son of a renowned trumpeteer Pandit Ramprasad Sharma. He learnt to play violin from a Goan musician named Anthony Gonsalves. The song "my name is Anthony Gonsalves" from the movie Amar Akbar Anthony is regarded as a tribute to Mr. Gonsalves (the film had music by Laxmikant–Pyarelal).
The seventies was their most productive decade. In a direct competition with R.D.Burman, Kalyanji Anandji ( to whom they were assistants at one time ), Bappi Lahiri, Rajesh Roshan and Ravindra Jain, they grabbed the best of banners ( Raj Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai etc. ) to conjure up an endless list of superhit scores. They continued in the eighties, shifting gears for Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt and N.Chandra to have an unparalleled sway over the Hindi film music scene. They have the highest number of songs in Binaca Geet Mala history.
Though the quality of music went down in the 70s and 80s, LP continued to give melodies in films like Naam, Sur Sangam and Utsav.
In fact, the reign of LP was so complete that in the 70s and 80s, hardly any music director duo dared to compete with them. However, there were a few entrants who tried to make their place.
One of the serious contender-duo was an Uncle-Nephew team which had a great debut but found it difficult to continue with music of sustained quality. Sonik-Omi (Master Sonik and Om Prakash Varma ) whose songs in Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya ( 1966) created a rage and each song in the score became popular.
Master Sonik was a blind musician who hailed from northern India. He was the creative side of the duo, and Omi was in charge of business activities.
After their initial success, they gave a few good scores like Mahua, Sawan Bhadon and Dharma but failed to live up to the early promise. Within a decade, they were doing B and C grade films. A couple of great hits now and then sustained them for some time before they fizzled out.
R.D.Burman's assistants Basudeo Chakraborty and Manohari Singh teamed up as Basu-Manohari to compose for a few films in 70s.
Uttam Singh was a sitar and violin player , who teamed up with another musician and arranger Jagdish to form Uttam- Jagdish duo, who composed for Manoj Kumar's Painter Babu and Clerk. Later on , he also composed music as a solo composer for Dil To Pagal Hai.
The sons of Anil Biswas, Amar and Utpal had a hit in Shahenshah, as Amar-Utpal.
There have been a couple of instances where the name of the composer appears to be that of a duo , but in reality it is only one person. Shyamji Ghamshyamji gave music in a few films in the 70s, debuting with Dhuen Ki Lakeer. They were not two persons but a solo composer, with a catchy name. Similarly Raamlaxman was actually the pseudonym of Vijay Patil, who gave great hits like Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.
There are pros and cons of having a team instead of going it solo, as far as composing music is concerned. The upside is a meeting of skills, sharing of the various aspects of arranging and being a standby in case of distress. This comes at an expense of losing your own idea of the song and the solo handling of musicians and arrangers, coupled with commercial negotiations. The SJ model makes sense, when we think of the enterprise in this perspective !
The only team which sustained the 80s was of classical musicians , santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma and flautist par excellence Hari Prasad Chaurasia formed the Shiv-Hari pair to render quality music in Yash Chopra's Silsila ( 1981). Shiv Hari continued to be associated with Yash Chpra for the films in 80s and 90s such as Faasle, Vijay, Chandni , Lamhe and Darr. The melodious creations of this team came as a fresh breeze in the 80s and 90s and established that the classical music has got unmatched sustenance value.
The Nineties saw a number of music director duos, to compete for the LP slot.
Anand and Milind were the sons of music director Chitragupt, who worked as Anand-Milind. After a few years in the industry, they had a blockbuster in Qayamat se Qayamat Tak ( 1988) and followed up with many good scores such as Baaghi, Dil and Beta. Milind was given the name by Lata Mangeshkar at the time of his birth. Their music was influenced by Laxmikant Pyarelal and due to this many LP loyalists chose them as composers when possible.
The direct competitors of Anand Milind in the 90s were another team of two composers, Nadeem Saifee and Shrwan Rathod, working as Nadeem -Shrawan.
The superhit duo Nadeem Shrawan had a string of hits starting with Aashiqui (1990) , giving them a successful reign for the next 7-8 years. They were closely associated with Gulshan Kumar, the T-Series tycoon and it was this involvement which eventually led to their separation and untimely phasing out from the music scene.
Dilip Sen- Sameer Sen hailed from a family of musicians and trace their lineage to Jamal Sen, the music director of the 40s. Interesting to note that Jamal Sen’s forefather Kesarji was said to be a disciple of Tansen and was hence called Kesar Sen. The family tradition in music was passed on to Jamal at a very young age by his father Jeevan Sen, a court singer and an acknowledged Ustad.
Coming from such great musical traditions, a lot was expected from the duo, who debuted in Soorma Bhopali ( 1988) and had a popular score in Ye Dillagi. Sadly, they could not live upto the expectations.
Jatin Lalit , brothers of Sulakshana Pandit shot to fame with Khiladi, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge and gave melodies unabated till their split after 16 years due to personal reasons. Till they lasted , they seemed to be one of the most melodious composer-duos of their times. They were heavily influenced by R.D.Burman's style of music.
The last decade and a half has seen many other teams : Vishal-Shekhar, Sajid Wajid, Salim Suleiman, Nikhil Vinay, Sachin Jigar, Sanjeev Darshan,Sangeet & Siddharth Haldipur, Justin-Uday, Nitz 'N' Sony ( Nitin Arora and Sony Chandy) , Meet Bros, Ajay-Atul and the two trios Meet Bros Anjjan ( who later split up) and the most promising of them all: trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
The last couple of decades has also seen composer duos making music outside films. Colonial Cousins ( Hariharan and Leslie Lewis), Kailash-Naresh-Paresh ( Kailsh Kher with Naresh and Paresh Kamath) and Bombay Vikings ( Neeraj Shridhar with Oscar Söderberg and Mats Nordenborg), to name a few. But non-film music is another story, to be told some other time !
Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa debuted in Bhopal Express ( 1999) and quickly shot to fame through superhit scores such as Dil Chahta hai, Kal ho na ho and Bunty aur Babli. They have captured the imagination of music lovers ever since and are still giving phenomenal scores, the last few ons being Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, 2 States and Dil Dhadakne Do.
The coming together of talent is a great thing and let's hope there are more such teams in the years to come, giving us great music.
Bollywood has had a great tradition of pairs of composers giving music in films, each one being a giant in his own right. A team of music directors brings a lot of experience and a combination of their individual skills , making the scores more melodious and successful.
Let us have a recollection of the famous Music Director Duos which have graced the hindi film music scene, down the years.
One of the earliest combinations was that of Husnlal Bhagatram. They debuted with Chand ( 1944) and are considered to be the pioneers as a composer-duo. Their family name was Batish and one of their relative S.D.Batish also became a music director and singer later on.
Husnlal was an accomplished violinist and a good classical singer and Bhagatram was an ace harmonium player. They were the brothers of the famous composer of the 40's, Pandit Amarnath, and both worked as his assistants.
Pyar Ki Jeet and Badi Behan brought them centre-stage. They worked with an array of lyricists to give memorable songs. They also composed the famous song Suno suno ae duniya walon, Bapu ki ye amar kahani. They parted ways in 60s after their last venture Apsara ( 1961) This Rafi song from Pyar ki Jeet ( 1948) , written by Qamar Jalalabadi was a rage in its time.
A short-lived innings of a a composer duo was that of Sharmaji-Varmaji !
Yes, there was a pair of composers who had that pseudonym. Interestingly, both of them were Muslims. Sharmaji was Khayyam, the music director who stayed as a solo composer and is well-known for his melodies. Varmaji was Rehman Varma who left for Pakistan soon after the country was partitioned. They gave music in the film Heer Ranjha ( 1948)
Shankar Singh and Jaikishan Panchal came together to form the chart-busting duo of Shankar Jaikishan ( hereafter referred as SJ) and had an explosive debut with Barsaat ( 1949). SJ were the most flamboyant of all the composer-duos to have been in Bollywood. Their association with Raj Kapoor played a role in their success, no doubt. But it was their versatility to employ both western and classical music , as and when required, which was instrumental in getting them scores of projects. Each success created more work and in no time, SJ were in the top rung.
Shankar knew Tabla, Sitar, Accordion and Piano etc. Besides his work at Prithvi theatre, he also started working as an assistant to the leading composer duo of Husnlal Bhagatram. Jaikishan was adept at playing the harmonium.
The 50s and 60s saw SJ ruling the hindi film music scene unfettered. They were also instrumental in making the Yahoo star Shammi get his debonair dancer image, taking his stock higher. At the same time, their romantic compositions for Rajendra Kumar was a factor in Jubilee Kumar's success story.
SJ was a team which was known to compose different songs separately and still maintain their "joint" brand equity. This eventually led to differences between them, making the fissures visible . The untimely death of Jaikishan in 1971 cut short a partnership, but Shankar kept on using SJ as the Team Name even when he composed himself, in latter years.
Kalyanji Virji Shah had started off as a composer and continued solo for a few films like Post Box 999 and Samrat Chandragupt, before being joined by his younger brother Anandji Veerji Shah, to make the team known as Kalyanji Anandji. The duo worked their way up in the 50s and 60s , amidst stiff competition from stalwarts like Naushad, Sachin Dev Burman, Hemant Kumar and Shankar Jaikishan. They made their place, slowly but surely, carving a niche for themselves.
The Shah brothers began to learn music from a music teacher, who taught them in lieu of paying his bills to their father, who ran a grocery store. Kalyanji started his career as a musician, with a new electronic instrument called the claviolin which was used for the famous "Nagin Been " in film Nagin (1954).
The early 60s films Chhalia, Himalaya Ki God Mein and Jab Jab Phool Khile firmly entrenched them in the industry and they never looked back. By 70s , they were in great demand and despite no strong affiliation with any " camp", they were able to give popular music throughout the 70s and even in the 80s.They were also instrumental in popularising stage shows and finding new musical talent, resulting in promoting a large number of fresh voices in Hindi films.
Sapan Sengupta and Jagmohan Bakshi were two singers in Salil Chaudhary's choir. Jagmohan had also given playback for Dev Anand in one film. The two debuted as a team in 1961. They had sporadic hits in the sixties and seventies, but could not make it to the big league despite hit songs like Phir wo bhooli si yaad aayi hai ( Rafi), Teri talash mein ( Asha), Ulfat mein zamane ki ( Kishore) and Main to har mod pe ( Mukesh). They kept on getting less projects and despite a good understanding of music, could not flourish.
Close on the heels, came another music director duo: Laxmikant Pyarelal. This team had an impressive debut in 1963 with Parasmani. They had a big hit in Rajshri's banner in Dosti ( 1964) and that paved the way for Laxmikant Kundalkar and Pyarelal Sharma to consolidate a tenure which was unprecedented. They were called LP, which also was an abbreviation for Long-Playing, indicative of their active period.
Laxmikant learned to play the mandolin and performed in Indian Classical instrumental music concerts to earn some money. Later, in the 1940s, he also learned violin from Husnlal (of the Husnlal Bhagatram fame).
Pyarelal was the son of a renowned trumpeteer Pandit Ramprasad Sharma. He learnt to play violin from a Goan musician named Anthony Gonsalves. The song "my name is Anthony Gonsalves" from the movie Amar Akbar Anthony is regarded as a tribute to Mr. Gonsalves (the film had music by Laxmikant–Pyarelal).
The seventies was their most productive decade. In a direct competition with R.D.Burman, Kalyanji Anandji ( to whom they were assistants at one time ), Bappi Lahiri, Rajesh Roshan and Ravindra Jain, they grabbed the best of banners ( Raj Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai etc. ) to conjure up an endless list of superhit scores. They continued in the eighties, shifting gears for Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt and N.Chandra to have an unparalleled sway over the Hindi film music scene. They have the highest number of songs in Binaca Geet Mala history.
Though the quality of music went down in the 70s and 80s, LP continued to give melodies in films like Naam, Sur Sangam and Utsav.
In fact, the reign of LP was so complete that in the 70s and 80s, hardly any music director duo dared to compete with them. However, there were a few entrants who tried to make their place.
One of the serious contender-duo was an Uncle-Nephew team which had a great debut but found it difficult to continue with music of sustained quality. Sonik-Omi (Master Sonik and Om Prakash Varma ) whose songs in Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya ( 1966) created a rage and each song in the score became popular.
Master Sonik was a blind musician who hailed from northern India. He was the creative side of the duo, and Omi was in charge of business activities.
After their initial success, they gave a few good scores like Mahua, Sawan Bhadon and Dharma but failed to live up to the early promise. Within a decade, they were doing B and C grade films. A couple of great hits now and then sustained them for some time before they fizzled out.
R.D.Burman's assistants Basudeo Chakraborty and Manohari Singh teamed up as Basu-Manohari to compose for a few films in 70s.
Uttam Singh was a sitar and violin player , who teamed up with another musician and arranger Jagdish to form Uttam- Jagdish duo, who composed for Manoj Kumar's Painter Babu and Clerk. Later on , he also composed music as a solo composer for Dil To Pagal Hai.
The sons of Anil Biswas, Amar and Utpal had a hit in Shahenshah, as Amar-Utpal.
There have been a couple of instances where the name of the composer appears to be that of a duo , but in reality it is only one person. Shyamji Ghamshyamji gave music in a few films in the 70s, debuting with Dhuen Ki Lakeer. They were not two persons but a solo composer, with a catchy name. Similarly Raamlaxman was actually the pseudonym of Vijay Patil, who gave great hits like Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.
There are pros and cons of having a team instead of going it solo, as far as composing music is concerned. The upside is a meeting of skills, sharing of the various aspects of arranging and being a standby in case of distress. This comes at an expense of losing your own idea of the song and the solo handling of musicians and arrangers, coupled with commercial negotiations. The SJ model makes sense, when we think of the enterprise in this perspective !
The only team which sustained the 80s was of classical musicians , santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma and flautist par excellence Hari Prasad Chaurasia formed the Shiv-Hari pair to render quality music in Yash Chopra's Silsila ( 1981). Shiv Hari continued to be associated with Yash Chpra for the films in 80s and 90s such as Faasle, Vijay, Chandni , Lamhe and Darr. The melodious creations of this team came as a fresh breeze in the 80s and 90s and established that the classical music has got unmatched sustenance value.
The Nineties saw a number of music director duos, to compete for the LP slot.
Anand and Milind were the sons of music director Chitragupt, who worked as Anand-Milind. After a few years in the industry, they had a blockbuster in Qayamat se Qayamat Tak ( 1988) and followed up with many good scores such as Baaghi, Dil and Beta. Milind was given the name by Lata Mangeshkar at the time of his birth. Their music was influenced by Laxmikant Pyarelal and due to this many LP loyalists chose them as composers when possible.
The direct competitors of Anand Milind in the 90s were another team of two composers, Nadeem Saifee and Shrwan Rathod, working as Nadeem -Shrawan.
The superhit duo Nadeem Shrawan had a string of hits starting with Aashiqui (1990) , giving them a successful reign for the next 7-8 years. They were closely associated with Gulshan Kumar, the T-Series tycoon and it was this involvement which eventually led to their separation and untimely phasing out from the music scene.
Coming from such great musical traditions, a lot was expected from the duo, who debuted in Soorma Bhopali ( 1988) and had a popular score in Ye Dillagi. Sadly, they could not live upto the expectations.
Jatin Lalit , brothers of Sulakshana Pandit shot to fame with Khiladi, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge and gave melodies unabated till their split after 16 years due to personal reasons. Till they lasted , they seemed to be one of the most melodious composer-duos of their times. They were heavily influenced by R.D.Burman's style of music.
The last couple of decades has also seen composer duos making music outside films. Colonial Cousins ( Hariharan and Leslie Lewis), Kailash-Naresh-Paresh ( Kailsh Kher with Naresh and Paresh Kamath) and Bombay Vikings ( Neeraj Shridhar with Oscar Söderberg and Mats Nordenborg), to name a few. But non-film music is another story, to be told some other time !
Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa debuted in Bhopal Express ( 1999) and quickly shot to fame through superhit scores such as Dil Chahta hai, Kal ho na ho and Bunty aur Babli. They have captured the imagination of music lovers ever since and are still giving phenomenal scores, the last few ons being Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, 2 States and Dil Dhadakne Do.
The coming together of talent is a great thing and let's hope there are more such teams in the years to come, giving us great music.
6 comments:
Very informative with some sharp and acute observations. The series is worth putting into a book!
Excellent analysis Amitabh. Lots of unknown came out for me - did you research or you knew it all. Loved the article. Keep them coming
Cheers
Laksh KV
Only Utpal of the Amar Utpal duo was Anil Biswas's son. Amar was Amar Haldipur, who had worked as an arranger before.
Very well articulated with interesting trivia
What a homework to put down the blog..!!!hail to the writer
Thanks for the kind words. The correction is noted, Aditya
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