bhaskarcan
Well-Known Member
Hello All,
There's a very interesting and informative thread, started by our good friend Saket, about good sounding Hindi vinyl pressings here in HiFiVision. On the same line of thought, I would like to learn, discuss and share about good sounding Regional Music and regional vinyl records.
As the thread starter, let me start with Bengali music vinyl.
When it comes to vinyl records, we, the Bengalis, are blessed in a way that the first record pressing plant of India was set up in Kolkata, backed by one of the largest music company of the world, EMI. IMHO, this fact somehow helped to flourish the Bengali music and Bengali vinyl records a big way. There's a considerably large pool of Bengali vinyl. HMV used to churn out a healthy flow of Bengali records in a regular basis. Irrespective of quality of music(since that is very subjective and varies person to person), majority of the Bengali records sound fantastic.
We get to hear songs written by Rabindranath Tagore (Rabindra sangeet), Kazi Nazrul Islam(Nazrul Geeti), D. L. Roy (Dwijendra Geeti), Rajanikanta Sen etc. prominent poets/song writers of Bengal who created their own sub-genres by themselves. Rabindranath Tagore alone covered a very broad area of Bengali record releases with his Songs, Plays, Musical-Dramas etc.
Then there's a huge chunk of non-film, Basic songs which are called "Modern Songs" (or "Adhunik Gaan" in Bengali). S.D. Burman, K.L.Saigal, Salil Choudhury, R.D. Burman are few well known names pan India, who contributed greatly to this genre. Apart from local Bengali singers, we have many non-Bengali singers from Bombay and South India singing Bengali "Modern Songs". K.L. Saigal. Pankaj Mallick, Hemanta Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee, Arati Mukherjee, Talat Mahmood, Md. Rafi, Mukesh, Mangeskar Sisters, Kishore Kumar, Yesudas, SPB, Bhupen Hazarica, Bapi Lahiri are few of many other names that come in mind. The Modern Song records are literally innumerable in all formats, starting from 78 Shellac to 45 RPM EP/SP and everything in between. The Durga Puja was a major occasion when bulk of these modern songs were released and hence these are also called "Puja Songs".
We have heard the best of the works of RD Burman in Bengali Modern Songs. Since he was free of any film related bindings that a music director has while composing film songs, he vigorously experimented with forms, orchestration and tunes of his Bengali songs, all of which are exemplary master pieces. Same was done by Salil Chaudhury too. He brought rural folk tunes to modern arena and amalgamated same with western style orchestration, including Western Classical styles. Each of his songs are considered classic today.
Besides these genres, we have Devotional Song records, Pure folk song records, records containing folk dramas and modern plays and of course Bengali film music records.
After HMV, INRECO (Indian Record Company) also established a record pressing plant in Kolkata. Becoming a rival short of to HMV's big muscle in Bengali music. Inreco managed Hindusthan records to get their records pressed in INRECO plant, thus getting the Artists from Hindusthan Records sing on INRECO label.
Kishore Kumar was signed by Megaphone records. His basic songs were on Megaphone label, besides HMV. Polydor/MIL too had few Bengali releases, but those were really small in number, when compared to HMV or Inreco. There were many smaller labels too, like Gathani, Bharati, Kiran, Classic etc who used to get their records pressed either by HMV or INRECO plants.
So here we have a brief introduction to Bengali music and records. Shall continue to discuss more on this.
Kindly contribute with information and experiences regarding records and musics of your region.
Regards,
Bhaskar
There's a very interesting and informative thread, started by our good friend Saket, about good sounding Hindi vinyl pressings here in HiFiVision. On the same line of thought, I would like to learn, discuss and share about good sounding Regional Music and regional vinyl records.
As the thread starter, let me start with Bengali music vinyl.
When it comes to vinyl records, we, the Bengalis, are blessed in a way that the first record pressing plant of India was set up in Kolkata, backed by one of the largest music company of the world, EMI. IMHO, this fact somehow helped to flourish the Bengali music and Bengali vinyl records a big way. There's a considerably large pool of Bengali vinyl. HMV used to churn out a healthy flow of Bengali records in a regular basis. Irrespective of quality of music(since that is very subjective and varies person to person), majority of the Bengali records sound fantastic.
We get to hear songs written by Rabindranath Tagore (Rabindra sangeet), Kazi Nazrul Islam(Nazrul Geeti), D. L. Roy (Dwijendra Geeti), Rajanikanta Sen etc. prominent poets/song writers of Bengal who created their own sub-genres by themselves. Rabindranath Tagore alone covered a very broad area of Bengali record releases with his Songs, Plays, Musical-Dramas etc.
Then there's a huge chunk of non-film, Basic songs which are called "Modern Songs" (or "Adhunik Gaan" in Bengali). S.D. Burman, K.L.Saigal, Salil Choudhury, R.D. Burman are few well known names pan India, who contributed greatly to this genre. Apart from local Bengali singers, we have many non-Bengali singers from Bombay and South India singing Bengali "Modern Songs". K.L. Saigal. Pankaj Mallick, Hemanta Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee, Arati Mukherjee, Talat Mahmood, Md. Rafi, Mukesh, Mangeskar Sisters, Kishore Kumar, Yesudas, SPB, Bhupen Hazarica, Bapi Lahiri are few of many other names that come in mind. The Modern Song records are literally innumerable in all formats, starting from 78 Shellac to 45 RPM EP/SP and everything in between. The Durga Puja was a major occasion when bulk of these modern songs were released and hence these are also called "Puja Songs".
We have heard the best of the works of RD Burman in Bengali Modern Songs. Since he was free of any film related bindings that a music director has while composing film songs, he vigorously experimented with forms, orchestration and tunes of his Bengali songs, all of which are exemplary master pieces. Same was done by Salil Chaudhury too. He brought rural folk tunes to modern arena and amalgamated same with western style orchestration, including Western Classical styles. Each of his songs are considered classic today.
Besides these genres, we have Devotional Song records, Pure folk song records, records containing folk dramas and modern plays and of course Bengali film music records.
After HMV, INRECO (Indian Record Company) also established a record pressing plant in Kolkata. Becoming a rival short of to HMV's big muscle in Bengali music. Inreco managed Hindusthan records to get their records pressed in INRECO plant, thus getting the Artists from Hindusthan Records sing on INRECO label.
Kishore Kumar was signed by Megaphone records. His basic songs were on Megaphone label, besides HMV. Polydor/MIL too had few Bengali releases, but those were really small in number, when compared to HMV or Inreco. There were many smaller labels too, like Gathani, Bharati, Kiran, Classic etc who used to get their records pressed either by HMV or INRECO plants.
So here we have a brief introduction to Bengali music and records. Shall continue to discuss more on this.
Kindly contribute with information and experiences regarding records and musics of your region.
Regards,
Bhaskar
