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Beginning in the 1930s, men and a handful of women came from India's many communities-Marathi, Parsi, Goan, North Indian, and many others--to Mumbai to work in an industry that constituted in the words of some, "the original fusion music." They worked as composers, arrangers, assistants, and studio performers in one of the most distinctive popular music and popular film cultures on the planet. Today, the songs played by Mumbai's studio musicians are known throughout India and the Indian diaspora under the popular name "Bollywood," but the musicians themselves remain, in their own words, "behind the curtain"--the anonymous and unseen performers of one of the world's most celebrated popular music genres. Now, Gregory D. Booth offers a compelling account of the Bollywood film music industry from the perspective of the musicians who both experienced and shaped its history. In a rare insider's look at the process of musical production from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s, before the advent of digital recording technologies, Booth explains who these unknown musicians were and how they came to join the film music industry. On the basis of a fascinating set of first-hand accounts from the musicians themselves, he reveals how the day-to-day circumstances of technology and finance shaped both the songs and the careers of their creator and performers. Booth also unfolds the technological, cultural, and industrial developments that led to the enormous studio orchestras of the 1960s-90s as well as the factors which ultimately led to their demise in contemporary India. Featuring an extensive companion website with video interviews with the musicians themselves, Behind the Curtain is a powerful, ground-level view of this globally important music industry.
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Behind the Curtain
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Behind the Curtain Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios
Gregory D. Booth
1 2008
3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Booth, Gregory D. Behind the curtain : making music in Mumbai’s film studios / Gregory D. Booth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–532763–2; 978–0–19–532764–9 (pbk.) 1. Motion picture music—Production and direction—India—Bombay—History. 2. Motion picture music—India—Bombay—History and criticism. 3. Motion picture industry— India—Bombay—History. I. Title. ML2075B66 2008 781.5⬘420954792—dc22 2008007201 Recorded video tracks marked in text with are available online at www.oup.com/us/behindthecurtain
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
This book is dedicated to Cawas Lord Cawas Lord (extreme right) rehearses Latin rhythms with his son, Kersi Lord (far left, on bongos), and Dattaram Waadkar (second from left, on congas). Music director Shankar Raghuvanshi looks on (Famous Studios, ca. 1957). Courtesy of Kersi Lord and f