The Unlikely Twain - Pyarelal & Kumar Sanu, Interviews on their Collaboration Options

[Saj1974]

Hi,

Interesting piece from this weeks screen, Pyare-ji explains why he makes a come back as an arranger for Kumar Sanu and more.....

Regs
Saj

Source: http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=9869

The unlikely twain

In December 2004, singer Kumar Sanu, who had already acted in and produced a Bengali film and had scored music for a few non-film albums, decided to turn producer and composer for a Hindi film. The big surprise was that he convinced Pyarelal, the surviving half of the legendary Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo, to arrange his songs and also score the film’s background music.

For Pyarelal, who had tried unsuccessfully to stage a comeback to work after a hiatus with a few albums, a serial and a couple of inconsequential films, all of which did not take off, it was his final return. The film was Kumar Sanu Communications’ Vasundhara, directed by Anjan Dutta and based on a Sarat Chandra classic. A few weeks later, Kumar Sanu signed his first outside film as music director, Doh Raha, and the association with Pyarelal continues.
What has made this unlikely twain join forces? What are Sanu’s career priorities now? Will Pyarelal keep working this way or also contemplate full-time composing, being Hindi cinema’s only complete musician?

Screen attempts to answer these questions with a talk with both the music talents. But before that a background is needed on their past relationship, which justifies the adjective ‘unlikely’ to describe their association.

THE BACKGROUND

In the early ’90s when Kumar Sanu suddenly slalomed to center-stage with ‘Jab koi baat bigad jaaye...’ in Rajesh Roshan’s Jurm and especially Nadeem-Shravan’s Aashiqui, Laxmikant-Pyarelal were firmly entrenched at the top. Therefore, it was the second stratum of music directors (R.D.Burman, Bappi Lahiri, Annu Malik - note the extra ’n’ - and Rajesh Roshan) that had been first affected by the emerging triumvirate of Nadeem-Shravan, Anand-Milind and Raamlaxman.
But before you could say ‘Saregamapa’, a cacophonous controversy was created in the media with battlelines drawn between N-S and Sanu on the one hand and L-P and Amit Kumar on the other. The artificial bone of contention was : who sings Kishore Kumar better? And a suddenly insecure L-P announced their staunch support for Amit Kumar because of their old loyalty to the late singer.

This totally avoidable war cost both L-P and Sanu a lot, for Amit Kumar had never really modelled or marketed himself as his dad’s substitute. Kumar Sanu, already a singer who had learnt to put in oodles of expression and emotion even in the most banal of songs, missed out on L-P’s expertise of bringing out the very best in every singer with songs tailored uniquely to their vocal USPs. As for L-P themselves, they could have perhaps faced the onslaught of the young Turks far more ably and confidently had they got Sanu and his all-pervading popularity by their side

In 1993, a truce was engineered by interested parties, and Sanu recorded the oh-so-melodious ‘Mere dil mein lage hain o sanam...’ for L-P in Dilbar, a film that introduced Laxmikant’s son Rishikesh as a hero. Sanu, who said at the recording, ‘I feel that I am reborn!’ sang some more songs in this film and then recorded for Bedardi and some other films.

But destiny itself did not seem to favour the union, though Laxmikant cheerfully said, ‘How can we ignore Sanu when my own son tells me that he is his fan and would like him to sing his songs?’ The music of both Dilbar and Bedardi (with the raag-soaked ‘Na meri zubaan pe tera naam aaya...’) sank without trace, the other films did not take off, and L-P never looked Sanu-wards again.

A combination of circumstances saw L-P’s career plunge rapidly and with Laxmikant’s death in 1998, Pyarelal went into professional limbo. Kumar Sanu kept riding high, though by the turn of the millennium he curtailed his work and also lost the numbers game to the greater range of Udit Narayan and the emerging force that was Sonu Nigam.

And so in 2004 the stage was set when everything fell into place. Pyarelal says that he took the momentous decision to work only as arranger because Sanu’s melodious and meaty compositions charged him up. The singer states simply that he first approached the most musical man in the industry to work on his songs and was lucky to get his nod, and adds that so far as background music is concerned, Pyarelal again has no equal. After some attempts to get them together (Pyarelal never gives detailed interviews while at work), Screen talked to both the artistes separately.

Excerpts from an interview:

PYARELAL

After such a long innings as `music director’ and your ongoing attempts to go solo, what made you accept the offer to arrange Kumar Sanu’s compositions?

I accepted the offer because it came at the right time, aur mujhe ek naya rastaa dikhaayi diya. When Kumar Sanu came to me, I confess that I was in a dilemma. I even conferred with my wife on whether to accept this kind of offer. But frankly, the offers coming as music director were not of the kind and calibre I was looking for. Kumar Sanu was not only very respectful but had also composed very good songs, so it was not as if I was taking up something substandard. I will also be scoring background music, and the film is not a B-grade setup but one based on a Sarat Chandra Chaterjee classic set in the 1930s. Therefore the music gives me a lot of scope as the aura and era of Bengal and Benares in the ‘thirties has to be authentically created. Finally, Sanu offered me the resources and budgets that were on par with my seniority and as if I was doing the complete film.

You were always dubbed as the arranger half of the L-P duo, though associates and insiders know otherwise. Will not this reinforce this wrong belief?

I do not think so. The label stuck to me because Laxmi and I compartmentalized our work in the ’70s when we really became very busy. It was unwittingly reinforced when he explained to a scribe about how we divided our work.
As I have said in an earlier interview for Screen ,the lay person is ignorant about musical terms. In Indian cinema, it is the composer of the melody who gets all the credit and is billed as the ‘music director’. The arrangers and conductors, and all those who have come in today because of the change in recording methods and techniques, are anonymous figures along with the musicians who actually play the instruments, though without them no songs can be recorded!
Right from the olden days, all the single ‘music directors’ and duos were essentially those who made the tunes, and they needed others to arrange their songs and take them to the recording stage. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were always the only composers who did everything themselves and took complete credit or discredit for good or bad songs! The lay people do not know that the term ‘arranger’ which is used so extensively and even condescendingly here exists actually only in dance music in international music convention!

Things have changed since the last days of your work as a duo. Recordings are now done piecemeal, in tiny studios rather than the giant floors of the old studios where live songs were done with a huge orchestra.

True, but in our career we saw so many changes and adapted to them. I think that these technical changes cannot override the creative and human aspects. We have recorded a song for Vasundhara and another for Doh Raha at Sanu’s studio and the recording engineer is a brilliant young man. Working with the latest technology always has a lot of advantages, and it is up to the musician like me to ensure that the few disadvantages are eliminated! In that tiny studio, I have managed to record with 60 musicians and to create the same canvas of sound, as you heard just now on tape, that we created with 120 musicians live at Mehboob or Famous Studios in those days! Everyone was surprised, but that is precisely what I mean when I say that ultimately the human factor that is the most vital. Even the atmosphere at the recording was that of a ‘live’ recording.

You never had a high opinion of Kumar Sanu. Has that changed now?

I would just say that things did not really work out then. If you delve into the past history of music, there are so many major names that never hit it off together. Today, Kumar Sanu has his own place and status, and 11,000 song recordings to his credit. And his compositions have the qualities that inspired me to work on them.

None of the albums that you began work on have hit the market.

Yes, but that is true only of the Indian projects. My project with Pascal Heni, Pascal Of Bollywood, has become a huge hit in France. Manufactured and marketed by Naive Records, one of the biggest labels there, it is an album that has sold almost 5 million CDs already since its release in mid-2004. I think that it will be launched in India through a tie-up with an Indian music label this year.

What exactly is the album about?

Pascal is a famous performer and musician in France. Exposed first to Indian film music in the late ’80s, he has become a crazy fan of Indian songs and can sing them without even knowing the meaning of the words. He came to me and wanted to work on an album of some favourites of his, including a song each in Hindi and Bengali. We recreated all the songs and recorded them in France, and Sadhana Sargam, Poornima, Jaspinder Narula and Shreya Ghosal have also sung the female parts. The selection was also done jointly and only 2 of the 11 Hindi songs are Laxmi-Pyare creations. The album begins with the title-song of An Evening In Paris. Now that is another door that is opening for me, for I have got some offers for work from France that have nothing to do with Pascal or Hindi film music. I only want to say one thing: the enormous body of work that Laxmikant-Pyarelal have done together is so sacrosanct that I should not even touch it, and as Pyarelal, I have to go beyond that.

KUMAR SANU

What made you decide to turn composer?

I was always interested in composing music. My father is a composer in Bengali and I would often assist him. As the film I am making is a musical love story I thought that I should step in and compose its music, which needed the right feel of the timeframe and the location of the story and songs that were rich in our melody and raags. I am hoping to get Ustad Sultan Khan to sing one song, and Kavita Subramaniam, Alka Yagnik and Shreya Ghosal will be the female voices. I will be singing one solo and a few lines in a duet.

The big query - why Pyarelal?

Pyare-bhai’s acceptance of my offer has given me a rare hausla both as composer and producer. I could have worked with any of the best current names, but working with Pyare-bhai was something else altogether. Today there is an acute dearth of good stories and good music, and we hope to rectify the deficiency with Vasundhara. Background music has been reduced to a joke, and we hope to do something about that too!

You plan to have top names in the cast, and you say that they are finalized. Why not reveal them at the launch and boost the marketing?

It was only apt that the music team takes center-stage in my film’s launch, which was done with the recording of a song by Alka-ji. You must have seen dozens of music releases in the past decade where everyone other than those responsible for the music stole the limelight!

Coming to Pyarelal, there was never a rapport in the past.

Yeh to waqt ki baat hai. I always had a very high regard for them and loved their music - it was they who chose not to work with me. But I know that I could not have got anyone better than Pyare-bhai to merge the old flavour needed for my subject with a new style.

Today, solid Indian music acquires a dated look.

I disagree totally. I would say that Indian melodies alone are permanently popular - the rest are trends jinka aana jaana lagaa hi rehtaa hai! The biggest selling film album in the last three years is Tere Naam, right?

How would you assess your songs’ commercial potential in today’s times?

My songs are all inspired by the story, situations and characters, as should always be the case. I have kept them simple, semi-classical and with the right feel of the period, and Pyare-bhai’s contribution is terrific. My main thrust is on making good music, for the matter of popularity is never in one’s hands. But at the risk of being repetitious I will say one thing - good music always sells.

So you agree that the current drop in sales is all thanks to a lack of quality.

Absolutely. Good music is a priority that all should work on to restore sales!
Now Pyarelal also teams up with you in Doh Raha, which is a contemporary subject and may not specifically crave for his high expertise. Are you always going to work with him?

If I can help it, yes. He has gone beyond my greatest expectations. He uncannily understands everything instantly and instinctively, and his sheer knowledge of music seems to have no end.

In music, you have gone for the biggest name possible. But in lyrics, you have opted for Sudhakar Sharma.

The problem over here is that work is done in a hurry and lyricists do not get the time to write good poetry. I have an excellent rapport with Sudhakar-ji and gave him the time needed. His poetry is on par with what our senior greats would write.

Can a top playback singer like you afford to turn composer and endanger his career when a new singer is arriving every year?

According to so many music analysts, I am finished anyway! (Laughs) Look, I have sung 11,000 songs in a very successful career. When I was on a trip to Mumbai, someone put me on to one of my top favourite composers and I recorded for R.D.Burman by singing a few lines in a multi-singer song for Kamal Hassan in Yeh Desh. That was over two decades ago. Later I came down to live here and Kalyanji-Anandji groomed me and Jagjit Singh-ji gave me my break. Then came my struggle phase that ended with Jurm and Aashiqui. God has been so kind to me that I can never show ingratitude by being insecure now and trying to manipulate and grab the maximum songs possible. There was a time when I was singing nearly all the songs in a film which were also the most popular ones. Today I sing just one or two songs in some films and they still override the others in popularity. I am told that there are singers who mimic me. There is nothing wrong with that because everyone has a role-model. But you cannot overtake the role-model unless you evolve your own style. What I am trying to say is that the songs that need my voice and expertise will come to me whether I am a composer or not.

But that is the business angle. What is even more important is exploring my creative urges. When I felt like it, I fulfilled my wish to be a hero in a Bengali film. Why should I only sing when I have the talent in me to do other things in music? Even as a producer, I hope to establish my production company as the makers of good, entertaining yet purposeful cinema.

[Dharmaan Khan]

Seems like the "Langar" has opened up yet again for the indian music industry


thnx for the article