Why, indeed. When time began for me, circa the mid-40s, film music had firmly established itself not as much via the radio, as by the gramophone disc turning around a spindle at the rate of 78 revolutions per minute. Recording companies like Columbia and New Theatres kept bakelite in business, churning out track after track of musical delight from studios in Bombay and Calcutta. The mighty HMV, though already established elsewhere in the western world, was yet to begin its forays into film music in India.
So what's all this leading to? Well, that's where we first heard our music and that's where our memories took root. In its day the '78' was no less a marvel of recording than the CD is today. There is one that still hangs framed on the wall of my living room, each groove a testimony to the hundreds of songs listened to, down the decades. Listening to the '78' recording of a song is not the same as listening to its fuller version on the CD~or even the '78' rpm version. The one was the original, the other a reproduction. Most of us from that generation, while listening to the CD hark back to the original scratch of stylus on bakelite.
Hence the name of this blog. It may not feature in future posts here, but will be the guiding force behind them all......Nor does this blog purport to reconstruct the history of music recording in cinema. The aim is to have people contribute their memories and relive their experiences of the music that has gone before today.....Once again, welcome.
Are u kidding me?! Dad, this is fantastic! Milan, thanks for challenging him and Naman, thanks for setting him up. Now that you are retired, your words will perhaps help the rest of us relax at the end of our work weeks! I know it just helped me. Love you and bon voyage!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome.. Really informative..
ReplyDeleteI din know about the 78 revolutions/minute thing.. interesting..
@Madhabi di: no problem :D
This reminds me of the time when I bought my first 78 RPM. Unlike in your case, music didn't come to me in the form of inheritance, except for the fact that like many households in Mumbai, we too had a Murphy Radio in our house. I owe my fascination for the vintage music to venerable Radio Ceyon, now Srilanka Broadcasting Corporation where I used to listen to not just the contemporary songs, courtesy Amin Bhai, in Binaca Geetmala but also several other programmes featuring the vintage music such as Purani Filmon Ke Geet at 07.30 AM, invariably ending with Shahenshah - e - Mousiqi's popular numbers at around 07.55 AM, Jab Aap Ga Uthhe, Drishay Aur Geet, Ek Aur Anek, and of course, the immensely popular, Hamesha Jawan Geeton Ka Programme, Aap Ke Anurodh Par on Sunday nights.
ReplyDeleteAfter starting my working career and having my first posting in Kolkatta in 1976 - 77, my fascination with vintage music encouraged me to start my own collection of gramophone records. Unfortunately the "Company" had by then stopped manufacturing 78 RPMs. They had also started recycling the popular old numbers in the form of LPs and EPs. But as the connoissures of vintage music will tell you, it is not the same as the music was originally recorded on 78 RPMs. So eventually I ended up at Dharmatolla Street in Kolkatta, the popular haunt of lovers of vintage music where every third shop used to sell second hand 78 RPMs. That's where I bought my first gramophone record, and my fascination with the songs of Shahenshah - e - Mousiqi ensured that the first 78 RPM record that I set my hands on was, Jo Beet Chuki So Beet Chuki with Piye Ja Piye Ja on the other side.
The rest, as they say, is history.