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.
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Update: September 26, 2016
I received an e-mail from Mahender Laxmandas:
My name is Mahender Laxmandas and I composed the tune “Crazy Girl”.
We started as a three piece band in 1963 and played for dances and weddings in Madras India.
As we became more popular we had four more members join us and we were the most popular band in Madras.
We also toured places like Bangalore, Trichy, Pondicherry and most of South India.
I am currently living in Melbourne Australia.
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.
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Since this posting, I have been contacted by Taras Mohamed, who’s father was in the band. The band did release one other single, which had four songs on it. Also, The Mustangs are reuniting a performance in Bangalore in January 2010.
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.
Radiodiffusion Internasionaal Annexe 