The LP [Laxmikant – Pyarelal] era and its magic!
At 71, Pyarelal Sharma has the enthusiasm of a musical newbie. He remembers his late partner without any false melodrama. “We were like one, closer than brothers, so no one can even begin to understand our bond,” he says. Not many are aware that till Laxmikant suggested that they team up as a duo in films, Pyarelal’s ambition was to become a famous musician from India in Western music abroad, like his close friend Zubin Mehta.
After Laxmikant passed away in 1998, the maestro (described by Laxmikant as “the only complete music director in Hindi cinema” who could read and write Indian and Western notations, compose, arrange, conduct and record songs and knew all instruments like the back of his hand) fought back against bad times. “Even today, I would not mind doing films if they are from A-list setups. Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai and Mahesh Bhatt keep talking about working together again, and I am waiting!” he says with a twinkle in his eye. In those hard times, Pyarelal recorded over 40 songs for albums that never came out.
The composer, who is considered India’s finest violinist, made his first unique experiment when he recorded three songs (with only basic rhythm and percussion) with popular playback singers singing the chorus and instrumental sections, while the chorus sang the solo portions! His eyes lit up with the pure joy of an innovative creator, he adds, ”For Ek pyar ka naghma hai from Shor I have also used choir voices as the strings section. I want to make an album of eight such numbers. Lata (Mangeshkar)bai and Amitji (Amitabh Bachchan have heard these songs and they asked me how I could conceive what has never been done before anywhere, but I am always thinking of how to come up with something new!”
In 2003, a British violinist named Candida visited Pyarelal and persuaded him to visit England’s Trinity College of Music. ”From 2004 to 2007, my wife and I would live there for four weeks every year, and I would teach the professors there,” recalls Pyarelal. ”It gave me a great sense of pride when David Welton, managing director of the London Philharmonic, told me, ‘Your music is like pure gold!”’
Pyarelal taught the British musicians to play his music. ”The London Philharmonic Orchestra got used to playing Western classical with an Indian folk touch and pan-Asian influences. I introduced new drums and wrote to a 2-4 beat when they are used to play on the 5-4. I also taught them to stop moving from side to side while playing!” smiles the composer, who adds that when musicians there came to know that he had composed songs and background music for 500 films, one of them exclaimed, ”Then you must be at least 300 years old!”
”I was invited also to compose a quartet for four teenage musicians who were interested in Indian music, and I admit that I made their score slightly difficult, but they rose to the challenge,” he says proudly.
Pyarelal simultaneously composed two symphonies (the most difficult of all Western music creations) and his work was published there in the book called Indian Summer by Schotts, a London-based publishing company. The symphony, called Om Shivam In A-Minor, was later registered in 2009 (after it went through the due but lengthy protocol of vetting the composition) at New York and the registration certificate is among his proud possessions. ”One more symphony is ready and I am composing two more,” says the legendary composer, who has even incorporated elements of dadra and keherwa in Om Shivam… and has two simultaneous beats playing in it!
The legendary composer is also into more musical explorations. Apart from the Laxmikant-Pyarelal concerts that he keeps doing and the song Dhoom tana that he arranged for Shah Rukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om, he will hold – later this year – a World Music concert in Germany, another World Music show with vocals-something never done before-in Austria and also present his symphony in a concert in America.
In France some years back, Pyarelal had composed and arranged an album of Indian film hits for leading artiste Pascal, called Pascal In Bollywood. ”The songs were neither restricted to Laxmikant-Pyarelal songs nor Hindi films alone,” he said. More recently, Shaad Ali recorded a 10-minute song penned by Gulzar and sung by Sonu Niigaam and Shreya Ghoshal for a Paris Festival. The song was staged live by Ranveer Band Baaja Baaraat Singh and a French actress in a performance directed by Ali there.
On March 15, 2012 in Dubai, Pyarelal again conceived a unique experiment in front of a 5000-strong live audience including world musicians-”They were dancing to the music!” smiles Pyarelal. A group of 20 Indian and 20 Western musicians joined forces for a World Music performance called Absolute India composed and arranged by Pyarelal and conducted by Kristjan Jarvi, Permanent Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was set in a 12-tone scale of original music that can eventually form the language of a new harmonious amalgam of Indian and Western music. ”I thought of the idea of Indian as well as Western musicians playing together on what is composed, written and conducted. I also devised solo pieces for Dr L.Subramaniam and his son Amby. And alongside, Kavita Krishnamurthi-Subramaniam, Amit Kumar, Sonu Niigaam and others sang our hit songs as well.”
For Pyarelal, the sky is obviously not the limit. ”From my father Pandit Ramprasad Sharma and my guru Anthony Gonsalves to the master composers we assisted, I have absorbed so much of music. But the more I learn, the more I realise that there is no end to musical knowledge,” says the composer.
A biographical note
Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma, was born in Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh, on 3 September in 1940. Pyarelal was the son of a renowned trumpeter Pt. Ramprasad Sharma (popularly known as Babaji), who taught him the basics of music. He started learning violin at the age of 8 and practised it 8 to 12 hours daily. He learnt to play violin from a Goan musician named Anthony Gonsalves. The song “My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves” of the movie Amar Akbar Anthony is regarded as a tribute to Mr. Gonsalves (the movie had music by Laxmi-Pyarelal). By the age of 12, his family’s financial condition had deteriorated, which in turn forced him to earn money by playing in studios. Pyarelal then used to frequent visiting and playing the violin in studios such as Ranjit Studios, to earn money for his family.
Formation of composer duo
When Laxmikant was about 10 years old, he once played mandolin in a Lata Mangeshkar concert in Radio Club, Colaba. Lata was so impressed that she talked to him after the concert.
Laxmikant and Pyarelal met at Sureel Kala Kendra, a music academy for children, run by the Mangeshkar family. After she came to know about their financially poor backgrounds, Lata recommended their names to music directors like Naushad, Sachin Dev Burman and C. Ramchandra. Similar financial backgrounds and age made Laxmikant and Pyarelal very good friends. They used to spend long hours at the recording studios, sometimes getting work for each other and even playing together whenever they got the opportunity.
Pyarelal often used to frequent the Bombay Chamber Orchestra and the Paranjoti Academy, where he would perfect his skills in the company of Goody Seervai, Coomi Wadia, Mehli Mehta and his son, Zubin Mehta. Laxmi-Pyare were not content with the payments being made to them for their music, so they decided to go to Madras (now Chennai). But, it was the same story there. So, they returned back. Once Pyarelal decided to leave India and go to Venice to play for symphony orchestras, just like Zubin. However, he stayed back at Laxmikant’s insistence. Some of Laxmi-Pyare’s colleagues at this time included Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (Santoor) and Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute). Later, Shivkumar and Hariprasad also ventured in Hindi Cinema as Shiv-Hari.
Laxmi-Pyare worked with almost all reputed music directors (with the exception of O. P. Nayyar and Shankar-Jaikishan) of the 1950s. In 1953, they became assistants to Kalyanji-Anandji and worked with them as assistants till 1963. They worked as music arrangers for many music directors including Sachin Dev Burman (in Ziddi) and also for his son Rahul Dev Burman (in his first film Chhote Nawab). Laxmi-Pyare and R D Burman remained very good friends, even when Laxmi-Pyare started giving music independently. R D Burman played mouth organ for all songs of Dosti. Laxmikant once made a guest appearance playing role of himself as a Composer of Song “Dil Ki Baat” in Teri Kasam (1982), which had music by R D Burman.
In their early days, Laxmi-Pyare’s music was very similar to Shankar-Jaikishan‘s music, as Laxmikant was a great fan of theirs. Once Shankar even changed his orchestration to make sure that his music did not sound like Laxmi-Pyare’s. Laxmi-Pyare’s first film as music directors was not released. The first released movie which featured them as music directors was Babubhai Mistry‘s Parasmani (1963), which was a mythological film. All the songs of the film became immensely popular esp. “Hasata Hua Nurani Chehara”, “Wo Jab Yaad Aaye” and “Mere Dil Main Halki Si”. Throughout their tenure as music directors, Laxmi-Pyare only used A-grade singers. Their mentors, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi, agreed to sing for them in spite of low budgets, and Laxmi-Pyare always remained indebted to them. In fact, both Mohammad Rafi and Lata have sung the maximum number of songs in their career for Laxmi-Pyare.They continued to give patronage to Mohammed Rafi, sometimes against filmmakers’ wishes. They had a great rapport with Kishore Kumar as well. Kishore Kumar sang maximum songs (402) for LP among all male singers, followed by Rafi(about 365 songs.
Laxmi-Pyare hit the big time with Rajshri Productions’ 1964 film Dosti. The film had two newcomer heroes who never became popular, and the film was a success due to its music. Songs like Chahoonga main tujhe shaam savere and Rahi manava became very popular. At that time, many used to think that there was a single person by the name of Laxmikant Pyarelal. Laxmi-Pyare won their first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for the movie, ahead of stalwarts like Shankar-Jaikishan (for Sangam) and Madan Mohan (for Woh Kaun Thi?). Then came Lootera a super hit musical non star cast film which is remembered only because of Lata Manageshkar’s super hit songs with Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
In 1966 LP started cementing their place in Hindi Film Music. LP’s first musical hit film, with big star cast, Aaye Din Bahar Ke was released, followed by Pyar Kiye Jaa. Even in films with lesser-known actors, LP scored hit music: Sati Sawitri (Songs:”Tum Gagan Ke Chandram Ho”, “Jeevan Dor Tumhi Sang Bandhi”, “Kabhi To Miloge”); Sant Gyaneshwar (Songs: “Jyot Se Jyot Jagate Chalo”, “Khabar More Na Line”); Hum Sab Ustaad Hai (Songs: “Pyar Batate Chalo”, “Ajanabi Tum Jane Pehachane Se”); Mr. X in Bombay (Songs: “Mere Mehaboob Quayamat Hogi”, “Chali Re Chali Re Gori”, “Khoobsurat Haseena”); Shriman Fantush..(Songs: “Sultana Sultana Tu Na Ghabarana”, “Yeh Dard Bhara Afasana”).
In 1967, LP consolidated their position in the Hindi film inddustry with a series of hits by one after another. Non star cast film Farz was LP’s first golden jubilee musical hit followed by big star cast films like Anita, Shagird, yet another Golden Jubilee hit, Patthar Ke Sanam, Night In London, Jaal and another evergreen musical hit Milan. LP received their second Filmfare Trophy for Milan without any stiff competition. The rise of Laxmi-Pyare, Rahul Dev Burman, and Kalyanji-Anandji marked the end of an old era of Bollywood music, which belonged to Shankar-Jaikishan, Sachin Dev Burman, Naushad (Mausicar-e-azam), C. Ramchandra, Khayyam, Madan Mohan, O. P. Nayyar, Roshan and others. Big film producing names, like Prasad Productions, Rajashri Productions, J. Om Prakash, Raj Khosla, Manoj Kumar, Ramamand Sagar, Madan Mohla, Mohan Sahagal, V.Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai and many more, started replacing their regular music directors and preferred Laxmikant-Pyarelal on regular basis and in return LP have given an outstanding music to justify the replacement with big names.
The team of Laxmi-Pyare and lyricist Anand Bakshi churned out some of the most popular songs in Hindi Cinemas history. The combo composed songs for more than 250 movies. Anand Bakshi was the lyricist who wrote the maximum number of texts Laxmi-Pyare gave music to. He was actually the lyricist for all the films for which Laxmi-Pyare won Filmfare Awards, except their very first award.
Laxmi-Pyare composed Indian classical music as well as Western music. But they were most popular for their folk tunes and semi-classical music. In Shagird, they created Rock-n-Roll-style foot-tapping melodies. The film Karz is worth specially mentioning here where LP successfully, gave disco-like music, in this film they had experimented with a ghazal “Dard-e-dil Dard-e- jigar” by westernizing it. The song is strongly remembered even now, and the duo the Filmfare Best Music Director Awardfor the year. Although it’s tune “Ek Hasina Thi” is a Blatant lift from George Benson’s ‘We as love’ (1977).
Although not as a rule, Laxmikant mostly looked after vocals and Pyarelal used to take care of orchestration. Both had vast knowledge of various music generes, musical instruments and orchestra management.
LP have completely dominated the Weekly Countdown programme called “Binca Geet Mala”, the most popular and famous musical radio programme of its time. It’s first broadcast was in 1953 by Radio Ceylon and it’s host was the inimitable Ameen Sayani. The Binaca Geet Mala ranked the most popular Bollywood film songs according to sales in select shops in select cities.
In the third quarter of 1963, LP’s first ever songs Hasta Hua Nurani Chehara form Parasmani hit the “Binaca Geet Mala”. After that LP’s songs were regularly and prominently aired on “Binaca Geet Mala”. There used to be sixteen songs in each of the weekly “Binaca Geet Mala” programme, more than half the numbers of the songs were of LP. There are certain weekly Binaca Geet Mala programmes in which more than 13 out of 16 songs of LP were broadcast when LP were on right on top of their carrier. BGM used to broadcast annual (Vasrshik ) programme giving the orders of the top 32 songs of every year. In this programme also LP were having upper hand. Not only that, on an average, there used to be at least more than 15 songs used to be of LP, that too about 50 % of the songs in between top to first ten positions. The Binaca Geet Mala records shows that Laxmikant-Pyarelal have completely dominated this musical programme.
[Courtesy biography: Wikipedia]