Child's Play ... Not So
The finding of Tamma Tamma and Jumma Chumma, gave me confidence that there could be more. To further my hunch, I had to go back to the early days. I remembered, sometime in the late 80's; We watched an English movie Fast Forward because Mandar, my childhood friend and son of current Lok Sabha, the house of commons speaker Sumitra Mahajan told us that Mithun Chakraborty's Dance Dance is based on this movie. Atul, Aditya and I saw this movie at his house on VCR (yeah, there was no cloud). The movie was very entertaining for those days. For portions of the movie, it was matched scene to scene and around the same time in both movies would come dance sequences. Obviously now hard to believe that there was an English Movie which we watched had Dance Numbers just like Bollywood flicks. So it was an easy inspiration for Babbar Subhash.
Anyways when I remembered this incident few more things were coming in my head as realized Bappi Da and Anu Malik were notoriously famous those days in print media for copying/inspiring from different musical notes. Thanks,Print medias like Dainik Bhaskar, Naidunia, Agniban, Mayapuri, Filmfare etc.
So I when I decided to put my detective hat on, it was no brainier I picked Bappi Da's Dance Dance to start. Movie back then was hit for its music and dance. It had 10 Numbers and most of them were usually heard at local Pan Shop or Naai Shop or in Riksha's (Believe it or not, those places decided whether the songs are hit or not). Bappi Da used Vijay Benedict (Who predominately sang only for Mithun under Bappi Da, But Guy actually sung for Aamir Khan's early days in movie Love Love Love, which was also Bappi Da's movie) , Alisha Chinai (She was good, but not huge, it was her combination with Anu Malik and then Made In India which made her Big later) and Bappi Da himself.
The movie starts with a number Zuby Zuby, where Mithun's Mom (recently found out is played by Sarla Yeolekar, who is pretty big in Marathi and even received an award from Dada Saheb Falke Trust) prior to his adulthood is held captive by Amrish and is asked to sing and perform. Amrish is all lusty for the looks and voice of Mithun's Mom. Mithun's Dad was played by Punjabi actor who was in news recently because of ill health and financial crisis Satish Kaul. But We are not talking about the Movie, coming back to songs. Bappi Da derived his inspiration from lots of Obscure bands (I believe Had it not been Bappi, we Indians would not have known lot of this obscure bands).
So back during my times in Oregon, I had a good friend of mine Dan H, who introduced me to a lot of American bands, which I had earlier called obscure ;) One of the bands he introduced me was Modern Talking (German though), it had some good numbers but most interesting one was Brother Louie, It was very catchy song and I immediately recollected all the memories above said after listening to Brother Louie.
It was after listening to this song, I had to change the word inspiration to plagiarism. Absolutely this was a blatant copy, But to credit to Bappi Da, he introduced Western Music to masses which was just limited to high-class society. I still remember people listening to English songs those days were hard to find and if you would find them, they will have a different attitude as if Hindi Music was garbage (which is clearly not the case in my opinion).
Those were also days when Record company T-series under the able leadership of Gulshan Kumar was coming up by providing cheap cassettes to masses which would have classic numbers from Mukesh, Kishore and Rafi sung by Babla Mehta (The guy who sung Tere Mere Hoothon Mein from Chandni), Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam (yes he is singing since the late 80's) respectively. All the female voices were covered by Anuradha Paudwal (who started her career under Dada Burman singing 2 liners in Abhimaan and became big after Subhash Ghai's Hero but got really big under the wings of Gulshan Kumar) and Bela Sulakhe (Once termed as Humari Choti Lata "Our Young Lata"by Kishore Kumar and now in oblivion, restricting herself to do stage shows. She has Chaha to Bahut N Chahe Tujhe "Tried really hard to not love to you" from Imtihaan 1994 to her credit ).
The T-series Cassettes used to cost Rs 10 whereas HMV was Rs 35, and for masses, it was money which was important. They will get to listen to Classics for much cheaper and made T-series a hit and then it was Aashiqui which happened. Actually, before Aashiqui, it was Qyamat Se Qyamat Tak which was the first major hit movie soundtrack under wings of T-series. HMV bounced back with Maine Pyar Kiya, but then a star was already born as T-Series. Would you believe HMV was at one point of time the sole distributors for LP's for most of the movies? Sholay had been theirs as well, but the deals with Sippy's did not work plus Ramesh Sippy was making magnum opus and he had ideas of digitizing the soundtrack, so the deal was cracked by Polydor a UK based company. Initially, when Sholay did not do too well, the music also suffered. But it was after the word of mouth publicity, the movie went to create history, and more than soundtrack it was the dialogues which were more popular. Polydor realized it and released Veeru Ki Sagai (as first Dialogue) and others in LP's and cassettes. Back to T-series and HMV, Had it not been the newest gadget Caravan, HMV-Saregama was done deal. T-Series is playing as Movie Producers and has broadened their horizon.
Sorry I got so much sidetracked, Another song from Dance Dance was Dil Mera Todo Na, picturized on Raj Kapoor's Ganga and Dawood's Mandakini. Mithun and Mandakini were hot pair those days and gave some solid movies :) like Jeete Hain Shaan Se (Remember Song Julie Julie), Hawalaat (Song Step by Step), Commando etc. I have bad habit of being sidetracked, back to business. UB40 an English Reggae and Pop Band released an album Baggariddim with 13 numbers, out of which Bappi Da loved Don't Break My Heart and used it for Dil Mera Todo Na. Lalji Pandey Popularly known as Anjaan had a herculean task of writing lyrics for the song and he came with Dil Mera Todo Na for Don't Break My Heart. Phew :)
I would have to credit Dan Hauth on introducing me to a lot of Pop, Rock, Reggae music and which made me do this task. He might have given hundreds of CDs. All that is on the cloud now, I might have all those CD's sitting in one of the cabinets in my home in India, if my mother has not gone on cleaning spree :) Thanks, Dan.
Anyways when I remembered this incident few more things were coming in my head as realized Bappi Da and Anu Malik were notoriously famous those days in print media for copying/inspiring from different musical notes. Thanks,Print medias like Dainik Bhaskar, Naidunia, Agniban, Mayapuri, Filmfare etc.
So I when I decided to put my detective hat on, it was no brainier I picked Bappi Da's Dance Dance to start. Movie back then was hit for its music and dance. It had 10 Numbers and most of them were usually heard at local Pan Shop or Naai Shop or in Riksha's (Believe it or not, those places decided whether the songs are hit or not). Bappi Da used Vijay Benedict (Who predominately sang only for Mithun under Bappi Da, But Guy actually sung for Aamir Khan's early days in movie Love Love Love, which was also Bappi Da's movie) , Alisha Chinai (She was good, but not huge, it was her combination with Anu Malik and then Made In India which made her Big later) and Bappi Da himself.
The movie starts with a number Zuby Zuby, where Mithun's Mom (recently found out is played by Sarla Yeolekar, who is pretty big in Marathi and even received an award from Dada Saheb Falke Trust) prior to his adulthood is held captive by Amrish and is asked to sing and perform. Amrish is all lusty for the looks and voice of Mithun's Mom. Mithun's Dad was played by Punjabi actor who was in news recently because of ill health and financial crisis Satish Kaul. But We are not talking about the Movie, coming back to songs. Bappi Da derived his inspiration from lots of Obscure bands (I believe Had it not been Bappi, we Indians would not have known lot of this obscure bands).
So back during my times in Oregon, I had a good friend of mine Dan H, who introduced me to a lot of American bands, which I had earlier called obscure ;) One of the bands he introduced me was Modern Talking (German though), it had some good numbers but most interesting one was Brother Louie, It was very catchy song and I immediately recollected all the memories above said after listening to Brother Louie.
It was after listening to this song, I had to change the word inspiration to plagiarism. Absolutely this was a blatant copy, But to credit to Bappi Da, he introduced Western Music to masses which was just limited to high-class society. I still remember people listening to English songs those days were hard to find and if you would find them, they will have a different attitude as if Hindi Music was garbage (which is clearly not the case in my opinion).
Those were also days when Record company T-series under the able leadership of Gulshan Kumar was coming up by providing cheap cassettes to masses which would have classic numbers from Mukesh, Kishore and Rafi sung by Babla Mehta (The guy who sung Tere Mere Hoothon Mein from Chandni), Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam (yes he is singing since the late 80's) respectively. All the female voices were covered by Anuradha Paudwal (who started her career under Dada Burman singing 2 liners in Abhimaan and became big after Subhash Ghai's Hero but got really big under the wings of Gulshan Kumar) and Bela Sulakhe (Once termed as Humari Choti Lata "Our Young Lata"by Kishore Kumar and now in oblivion, restricting herself to do stage shows. She has Chaha to Bahut N Chahe Tujhe "Tried really hard to not love to you" from Imtihaan 1994 to her credit ).
The T-series Cassettes used to cost Rs 10 whereas HMV was Rs 35, and for masses, it was money which was important. They will get to listen to Classics for much cheaper and made T-series a hit and then it was Aashiqui which happened. Actually, before Aashiqui, it was Qyamat Se Qyamat Tak which was the first major hit movie soundtrack under wings of T-series. HMV bounced back with Maine Pyar Kiya, but then a star was already born as T-Series. Would you believe HMV was at one point of time the sole distributors for LP's for most of the movies? Sholay had been theirs as well, but the deals with Sippy's did not work plus Ramesh Sippy was making magnum opus and he had ideas of digitizing the soundtrack, so the deal was cracked by Polydor a UK based company. Initially, when Sholay did not do too well, the music also suffered. But it was after the word of mouth publicity, the movie went to create history, and more than soundtrack it was the dialogues which were more popular. Polydor realized it and released Veeru Ki Sagai (as first Dialogue) and others in LP's and cassettes. Back to T-series and HMV, Had it not been the newest gadget Caravan, HMV-Saregama was done deal. T-Series is playing as Movie Producers and has broadened their horizon.
Sorry I got so much sidetracked, Another song from Dance Dance was Dil Mera Todo Na, picturized on Raj Kapoor's Ganga and Dawood's Mandakini. Mithun and Mandakini were hot pair those days and gave some solid movies :) like Jeete Hain Shaan Se (Remember Song Julie Julie), Hawalaat (Song Step by Step), Commando etc. I have bad habit of being sidetracked, back to business. UB40 an English Reggae and Pop Band released an album Baggariddim with 13 numbers, out of which Bappi Da loved Don't Break My Heart and used it for Dil Mera Todo Na. Lalji Pandey Popularly known as Anjaan had a herculean task of writing lyrics for the song and he came with Dil Mera Todo Na for Don't Break My Heart. Phew :)
I would have to credit Dan Hauth on introducing me to a lot of Pop, Rock, Reggae music and which made me do this task. He might have given hundreds of CDs. All that is on the cloud now, I might have all those CD's sitting in one of the cabinets in my home in India, if my mother has not gone on cleaning spree :) Thanks, Dan.
Interesting information wrapped in nostalgia !
ReplyDeleteInteresting information wrapped in nostalgia !
ReplyDeleteGold Days ..
DeleteKya baat hai waah.. 👌👏👏👏
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