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We can together sponsor an IR album !!!

Topic started by SR Kaushik (@ elroy.cs.wisc.edu) on Fri Aug 28 13:44:52 EDT 1998.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Guys & gals, I have already put this stuff in one of the therads. But, owing to the poor response, I am starting it as a topic. I am sure if some of us get together, we can sponsor an album of say, IR's great BGM pieces or something like that. I really miss listening to them. I am sure we could raise the funds over a period of time.

Interested people, please respond in this thread. We will have to plan out the details also.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: balaji (@ schubert.crhc.uiuc.edu) on: Wed Sep 2 22:53:52 EDT 1998
  
  Srinivas: i don't think u need to worry about
  the appeal of BGMs. they can be as standalone
  as any of the songs. sure, it will be new to
  the TFM industry. but looking at a wider range,
  the BGMs by themselves create an implicit mood
  which can captivate people. i have been amazed
  by the way certain BGMs stay in our memories,
  though they were supposed to substantiate the
  on screen part. but, several of topnotch IR
  songs have wonderful lyrics(like panivizhum
  malarvanam and andhimazhai pozhigirathu). so,
  i am not sure if the effect will be good to
  convert songs into instrumental pieces. let the
  songs be songs with singers.
  my favourite BGMs apart from what kaushik mentioned:
  kaalapaani, KM, moghamull(i don't know how many
  of you saw the movie, but the BGM is too good,
  with a lot of classical pieces. especially in
  a scene where nedumudi venu instructs the hero
  on the music of nature), nayakan, apoorva
  sagotharargal(the theme piece).
  
  
• From: shankar (@ webgate0.mot.com) on: Thu Sep 3 03:05:07 EDT 1998
  
  recently, the sound track of the movie SATYA has been released with the BGM named "satya-The Sound"
  That piece is that of a chase in the movie.
  I think anybody among us who has personal contact with IR can make a suggestion to him that the sound track of Marudanayakam may be released. If it's a success then that will be a forerunner for our project.The one we r planning will reach more audience since the sound track of MNayakam would've bcom popular by then and thing will be smoother for us to carry on ie., no vigorous marketing and all that.
  
  
• From: shankar (@ webgate0.mot.com) on: Thu Sep 3 03:07:05 EDT 1998
  
  read 'thing' as 'things'
  
  add "r needed" to the last sentence ;-)
  
  
• From: suresh (@ bellbird.qut.edu.au) on: Thu Sep 3 08:02:16 EDT 1998
  
  Kaushik:
  
  Echo broke up long ago, in bad taste.. again, it was never fully owned by IR; if i remember right, there was aguy named krishnamoorthy who had the major stake; gossip in the music industry in those years (late 80s or early 90s, i think) had it that this guy, who apparently was a keen IR fan returned frm the US, & IR fell out over money matters. ultimately, i heard IR lost out on the whole thing by virtue of not having a keen eye for business..
  
  Somehow, promotion of IR's music suffered after that due to the frequent changes in the recording company, starting from an abortive venture by IR himself (Raja Recording) to AVM to several smaller companies.. u might find that inconsistency in IR filmtracks right from the late 80s, i think. the associated problem with that will be that of copyrights - a substantial no. of movies done in the last 10 years or so will be property of diverse companies.. whereas Echo will still be holding a sizeable chunk of the 70s and 80s movies, & polydor/ HMV holding those during his early years in films..
  
  reg. BGM, one of his best pieces is in "Salangai Oli" with the flute i think, esp. when kamal & jayaprada meet.. also u could take any film of mahendran & balu mahendra to find real BGM treasures.. music that really spans the spectrum from western classical to folk.. there are also some great bits in malayalam films, esp. those done for padmarajan, fazil & the recently-deceased bharathan.
  
  
  
• From: SR Kaushik (@ ntws225.cs.wisc.edu) on: Thu Sep 3 14:00:49 EDT 1998
  
  Suresh, I appreciate your interest very much, but I think it would be better if you could specify the BGM pieces you are referring to more clearly. Also, I would like to know if Echo is down, how come I see cassettes like "Flower songs", and other old songs of IR's even today in shops? Is it that IR has fallen out of Echo or Echo is no longer existent?
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ freedum.proxy.lucent.com) on: Thu Sep 3 15:04:34 EDT 1998
  
  Kaushik,
  If U want more details of Echo, contact Oriental records in New york.I think they have a web page.I was given to understand that raja could'nt manage echo and handed over management issues to R.parthasarathy(RP in short.who is a talented guy and runs Oriental recording company in Long Island)in mid 80's.Thats why U see most of raja's work coming out of oriental records,as they had the copyrights.RP in late 80's wound up Echo recording as it was'nt anymore profitable.IR subsequently came up with his own company "Raja recording" which had a "visiri" as the symbol.I think "Idhayam" was the first movie to be released from this new company.Incidentally I attended the company's opening ceremony at park sheraton in 91.I managed to sneak in with my friend's invitation.That was the first time I met raja and managed a hand shake.There were just 50 invitees including Kamal and rajni.
  I kinda lost track after that and am not sure wether "raja recording " exists anymore.
  But Echo is gone for sure.
  
  
  
• From: Srinivas (@ scproxy3.sc.intel.com) on: Thu Sep 3 15:15:00 EDT 1998
  
  Balaji ,
  You are right! There are several songs with excellent singing and excellent lyrics. So from a TFM point of view, you are justified in expressing concern over their conversion into instrumental.
  But then, I was speking from the point of view of achieving a much wider recognition for IR (not just confined to TN/AP etc.). I feel (like several other hc fans), that HE deserves much more popularity than what he already has.
  I appreciate your point about the lyrics, but there are several songs, that IR has already converted to instrumentals (eg : The song "Sirimalle puvva" in Telugu. It is a song from the film "Annakilli", and is played on the flute with some excellent guitar accompaniments.And it sounded better as an instrumental!
  Also, there are several songs that are appreciated only in certain regions, because of the constraints imposed by the lyrics. For eg, people from Andhra do not get to listen to several GEMS of IR from Tamil, unless they are dubbed into Telugu (which is quite rare). The vice versa also holds. The good thing about intrumental versions is that you can reach out to a much wider audience and people from all over India can get to listen to some of the greatest works of Maestro, without having to ignore the music, becos' they don't understand the lyrics.
  
  I am not trying to dampen enthu for recording BGM pieces. As you have correctly pointed out, there are several pieces that linger in the mind, even after the movie is forgotten.
  Even so, there are two things I am worried about.
  
  1. whether you will get "sufficient number of reasonably long" pieces to be meaningfully collected into an album
  2. The impact and commercial success.
  Pls note that these are just my concerns. Provided that we manage to get some great BGM pieces, then we can surely go ahead with this.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: kiruba (@ slipper.watcom.on.ca) on: Thu Sep 3 17:09:56 EDT 1998
  
  I think we need to draw up a list of priorties. We also need to have a mission statement for the venture. Here is my first shot at this -
  
  Mission Statement
  -----------------
  To make IRs music reach a worldwide audience in a recording medium of really high quality.
  
  Priorities (guided by mission statement)
  ----------
  1) Instrumental version of songs with good orchestration (to reach a wider audience)
  2) Interesting BGM pieces
  3) Songs with exceptional lyrics, melody and orchestration.
  
  Everybody please follow this format. Add/Modify to Mission Stmt and Priorities.
  
  Also, I think Suresh mentioned about approaching Sony and MagnaSound. Sounds like a good idea to me. But I want really high quality recording. This issue needs to be clarified. I find IR has done very orchestration but most of it goes unnoticed because of the recording. This (orchestration) is what is going to expose IR to the worldwide audience.
  
  Does anybody know the kind of tapes the recordings were made ? I find music recorded in the 60s/70s have been resurrected by American companies with high quality reproduction on CDs. So this venture is surely possible even if we are using old tapes.
  
  
  
• From: Srinivas (@ scproxy3.sc.intel.com) on: Thu Sep 3 17:42:41 EDT 1998
  
  Kiruba,
  I second your first shot at the mission statement.
  
  
• From: balaji (@ schubert.crhc.uiuc.edu) on: Thu Sep 3 17:50:46 EDT 1998
  
  i don't think raja recording exists anymore.
  i think it was handled by gangai amaran and when
  he had a misunderstanding with IR, i think the
  venture was closed.
  as srinivas pointed out, there are a lot of pieces
  which have become instrumental. these include,
  songs form 16vayadhinile, mannvaasanai,
  mudhal mariyaadhai etc. BTW, isn't "sirimalli
  poova" senthoora poove from 16 vayadhinile??!!
  i don't think sony will agree to re-recording
  old songs. it wants a powerful bandname and an
  identity. it even made ARR grow long hair to get
  an appeal. i wonder how IR will look like !!!
  magnasound seems to be a good option. another
  option is the company which releases the
  "new age" music, including the series on elements,
  "fire" "earth" "sea"etc by zakir, vishwamohan
  bhatt et al. i forgot the name of the company.
  they might be willing to do this project.
  finally, a best idea, but 99.99% impossible idea
  will be to let ARR do the orchestration and
  recording of these pieces!!!
  
  
• From: Long Live IR (@ nc.pr.mcs.net) on: Thu Sep 3 18:01:54 EDT 1998
  
  OK, let us convene on this dream physically. We need to find who can represent us. We need to fund the project with not less than a crore of rupees, and finally a suitable album that covers all idioms or styles of music currently in existence:
  
  1. Tamil folk song
  2. Carnatic song in a unique raga
  3. A western music type piano etude,or overture
  Jazz instrumental
  4. A complete movie theme like for the movie
  African Safari or Star Wars
  5. A western type pop-rock song , eg: Abba, Bee Gees or M.Jackson
  6. A jazz rock song like Dire Straits 'Money for Nothing'(NEED A SINGERs LIKE THEM)
  7. A hollywood type film song like "Gigi",
  Three coins in a Fountain' (NEED A SINGER LIKE ANDY WILLIAMS)
  
  I think this project should be with the scope of rounding up Illaiyaraja's efforts and helping the broad sprectrum of music lovers (maybe a billion) of this world to know about the greatest genius we have ever seen and help music lovers to reduce their inhibition in learning more about the geniuses works lying hidden in South India.
  
  This effort is a major initiative! We would need to be really enthusiastic and dedicated in not only convincing a record company (who will be fortunate to be approached by us!) but also praying upon our Isaignani to take time off my filmworld and dedicate a year or two on this project. This is our biggest talk here and I would like to see this succeed just for our own sake, forget music lovers of this world and forget the Maestro himself (who may not really ever care about his greedy fans who never quit asking for more of him).
  
  Step 1:
  
  Get the names who can contribute not less than $500. We would need atleast 400 fans.
  
  Step 2: Sign up with a deserving record company
  Step 3: Approach Illaiyaraja after every ground work is complete.
  Step 4: Line out themes or musical situations that Raja can find very interesting to try out.
  Step 5: If money no longer motivates our Maestro, find out what motivates him and provide that also for him. I am sure it is worldwide recognition that Raja feels he would need for the sake of music not for his sake. So, we would should seek affiliation with music people other than recording company. Say, M Jackson, or other singers who will sing his songs, etc.
  
  Phew, I am already tired already!!! Think over....
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: kiruba (@ slipper.watcom.on.ca) on: Fri Sep 4 16:52:03 EDT 1998
  
  If Sony is interested in cheap gimmicks we may have to forego them. I am not sure with what label Zakir Hussain's albums are released. But Peter Gabriel's RealWorld does almost all of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan works. Maybe these guys will be interested. There is also a French company (ETHNIC) which might be interested in a joint venture.
  
  Maybe joint ventures are not a bad idea. We will get the marketing network of that company and we get to create an album that we like.
  
  BTW, Balaji, we are not only considering re-recording but also plain old re-mastering. It all depends on the quality of the original tapes. It should all be lying in some place even if the companies which had copyrights dont exist anymore.
  
  

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