Music director duos are a novel Bollywood function.

Names like Shankar-Jaikishan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Nadeem-Shravan and Jatin-Lalit maintain pleasure of place among the many most celebrated music composers in Hindi movie music.

But, their reputation was intractably intertwined of their hyphenated jugalbandi.

As soon as the partnership disintegrated for no matter purpose, the unbiased profession of the surviving member instantly misplaced steam.

On this particular sequence, Dinesh Raheja explores distinguished music duos, and the dynamics that went into the making, and the unmaking.

Half 1: Shankar-Jaikishan

 

IMAGE: Shammi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore in An Night In Paris.

The Shankar-Jaikishan mixture held sway over the Fifties and Sixties.

Being a workforce helped S-J compose for extra movies than their contemporaries, and that too with out ever undermining their musical virtuosity.

Their affiliation with Raj Kapoor (Barsaat, Awara, Shri 420, Sangam) and Shammi Kapoor (Junglee, Jaanwar, An Night In Paris, Brahmachari) is legend for its haul of crowd-pleasing tunes.

However S-J additionally mined aural gold with definitive classical tunes like Manmohana (Seema) and Ketaki Gulab Juhi Champa Ban Phoole (Basant Bahaar).

And so they had been masters at harmonising melodies with orchestration to intensify emotion onscreen as in an Ajeeb Daastaan Hai Yeh.

 

IMAGE: Raj Kapoor with Hasrat Jaipuri, Jaikishan, Shankar and Shailendra. {Photograph}: Form courtesy Movie Historical past Pics/Instagram

This synergy between two gifted buddies is alleged to have struck a discordant notice as soon as Shankar began selling his protegee, singer Sharda, over their long-time favorite, Lata Mangeshkar. However there was by no means an official cut up.

When Jaikishen died immediately in 1971 aged simply 41, Shankar tried desperately to maintain the S-J flag flying excessive. However solo success eluded him and provides began petering off.

IMAGE: Manoj Kumar and Hema Malini in Sanyasi.

A giant blow was when Raj Kapoor moved onto Laxmikant-Pyarelal with Bobby (1973).

Shankar did ship successful soundtrack all by himself within the Manoj Kumar-Hema Malini starrer Sanyasi (1975), studded with a number of fashionable songs in his beloved Raag Bhairavi and sung by outdated associates Lata and Mukesh.

However even this could not stem the decline.

Thereafter, he continued composing for the occasional movie, nonetheless, the efforts weren’t memorable.

In 1987, Shankar died immediately at 64, utterly sidelined by the trade that when thronged his doorways.

Pictures curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff