Good Morning friends! Yesterday Prakash D requested that I write about my favourite music director C. Ramchandra aka Annasaheb or Anna to his ardent fans! I agreed at that moment without realising what I am getting into. Anna is my favourite MD & hence I did not think much before saying yes. Whole day I was busy & hence able to shun any thoughts about this write up, but as I got free from daily rigmarole and evening drew to close, I realised I will not be saying anything which google guru does not say! So first few essentials! C. Ramchandra (Ramchandra Narhar Chitalkar) was born in 1918 in Puntamba, a small town in Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra, India. He studied music under Vinayakbua Patwardhan at Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. He joined the movie industry playing the lead role in Y. V. Raos movie, Naganand. He also had some small roles at Minerva Movietone in the movies Saeed-e-Havas and Atma Tarang. In the composers role, he mostly used the name C. Ramachandra, though he also used the names Annasaheb (in the movies Bahadur Pratap, Matwale, and Madadgaar), Ram Chitalkar (in the movies Sukhi Jeevan, Badla, Mr. Jhatpat, Bahadur, and Dosti), and Shyamoo (in the movie Yeh Hai Duniya). Further, he often sang and acted in Marathi movies under the name R. N. Chitalkar. For his career as an occasional playback singer he used only his surname Chitalkar. In 1953, he also produced with New Sai Productions three Hindi movies: Jhanjhar, Lehren, Duniya Gol Hai. In the late 1960s, Ramchandra produced two Marathi movies, Dhananjay and Gharkul. He also acted in them and composed music for them. For purpose of record, he gave music to some 104 movies which contained 932 songs, which averages to almost 9 songs a movie. C. Ramchandra died of acute peptic ulcer on the 6 January 1982 at Beach Candy Hospital, Mumbai. His bungalow is still there in Pune, off JM road, which bears nameplate put up by Pune Municipal corporation as “Music Director C. Ramchandra lived here”. PMC has put such nameplates at the houses of many great people and had it not been PMC, I would have never known it. C. Ramchandra wrote his autobiography in Marathi in 1977, which is out of print. He has discussed his personal life in depth which kind of disappoints and does not discuss why his output suddenly dried up as per those who have read it. I will not claim to have heard all his compositions and cannot say this authoritatively enough but I feel that his songs pre-1950 were excellent too, of course not all them were good or can stand test of time. There is a general feel (from what I have read on net & elsewhere) that his creativity deserted him after fall out with best playback singer. I kind of disagree, the songs of Stree or Ae Mere Vatan Ke Logo or songs from Gharkul are testimony enough that it was not so. True, output was not as prodigious as earlier, but then I would say the musical sensibilities of people were changed, lot of loud orchestration had crept in popular music and slowly but surely Melody was dying out. (This may perhaps explain Madan Mohan being not so popular in those days, now of course he is revered). Anna was one of the most versatile composer who introduced many elements/styles. He was adept at Classical, Folk, Arabian Rock etc. The range is astounding from Dheere Se Aaja Re to Ina Mina Dika to Shola Jo Bhadke. Any street Barat dance in at least Maharashtra is incomplete without the strains of “Bholi Surat Dilke Khote” with people mimicking Bhagvan Dada’s moves. As per one account Sr Burman had advised RDB to study CR’s compositions for versatility when he was finding his feet. His assistant Chic Chocolate (Antonio Xavier Vaz) was instrumental in bringing Jazz flavour to Anna’s music, he also gave music independently in film Nadaan (1951) among others. He tried to give break to new talent, by one account Rafi sang his fifth or six song for him. They later had major rift for certain reasons, & hence CR did not use his voice later, though Rafi has sung some 70 odd songs for him, few of them are classics. It is well known fact that he gave break to Mahendra Kapoor. I have tried to put together some of my thoughts, hope there is something new & coherency to it :)
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 02:23:50 +0000
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