Prof. Greg Booth is a musician, author and teacher at University of Auckland, New Zealand.

In 2008 Prof. Booth’s book “Behind The curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios,” was published. It highlights the contributions of individual musicians, who were part of a larger Hindi or Bollywood music orchestra.

The musicians came from different background spanning British military brass bands to jazz and traditional Indian music. For example – quite a few of the musicians came from the Indian state of Goa, which had a strong Portuguese influence. Many musicians came from a Catholic background and learnt to read and play music as part of their education. What was the musical influence that the Goan musicians brought with them into the Hindi or Bollywood music? That is one of the strands that Prof. Booth explores and highlight in this book.

In Part-2 of the interview Prof. Booth  talks about Chic Choclate, Joe Menezes, Leslie Gudinho and Kersi Lord, whose music you might recognize but not know they were the ones who played that musical refrain because they were always behind the curtain. The people who were in front of the curtain were the music directors like C. Ramachandra,Laxmikant Pyarelal, SD Burman, RD Burman and others.

LISTEN: Prof. Greg Booth on The Making of Bollywood Music Part-2

 

Coming up is Part-3 of the interview with Greg.

Music credits: Amar Akhar Anthony, Barsaat, Albela, Teesri Manzsil, Aradhana and Bhoot Bangla.

Photo credit: Greg Booth