Category: Entertainment

Jaaneman Jaaneman (cover)

It has been a long time since I have sung a song with Vidyu, who is an amazing singer and one of the very few people whom I met through Internet in the initial days of music blogging. Our first original duet, Mella Mella – which was done for Blogswara, still remains at the top of all Blogswara albums (BTW, did I tell you that Blogswara’s version 5 is coming up soon? More details will be followed in this blog in the coming days). Here is our new cover song.

Song: Jaaneman Jaaneman
Music: Salil Chowdhary
Original singers: Yesudas, Asha Bhosle
Cover by: Jo & Vidyu

Download this song’s MP3 file here. To download all my cover songs, click here.


Jaaneman Jaaneman (cover) | Upload Music

Manodharmam

Not many of us knew that composer Sarath is also an amazing singer and a Karnatik musician until he displayed his talent through Idea Star Singer. Now check out this video where he sings with P Unnikrishnan, another great singer.

(Thanks to Rosh for the link)

Dinesh Ghate speaks

Those of you who have been frequently visiting this blog would have read my post on Dinesh Ghate, the man who is on a mission to honor the musicians ignored in the film music industry of India. Dinesh runs a magazine that celebrates the musicians who worked in the popular songs whom we never knew about. I had a chance to have an email interview with Dinesh (thanks to Pradeep for his help with this) and here it is.

Q] What is the idea behind Swar Aalaap? What made you take this initiative to introduce those unsung heroes of the popular music to the public?

I am a musician right from the childhood. I always listen to the good old songs and apart from the singers, I have been thinking about the music part that has created the magic mood of a song. So when I became a musician (playing Octopad) I wanted to give credit to the legendary artistes who were instrumental in the songs. Also with the help of Swar Aalap, the musicians come in contact with each other through out the country, because music is a universal thing.

Q] How did you go about collecting the names of those musicians who were not even mentioned in the original credits?

As I’m regularly doing music shows, everybody knows about Swar Aalap and that has made it easy for me. Now a days senior musicians also give good response and information. And I am always busy with searching for original musicians.

Q] How is the response from the film music industry? Do you think this would make them rethink about giving proper credits to the solo instrumentalists?

The response has been very good from across the country as well as abroad, but not from music industry here.

Continue reading Dinesh Ghate speaks

Tony Meléndez: An amazing musician

I just got this email forward from my friend Don, and it shows the musician Tony Meléndez playing guitar and singing the famous Beatles song Let It Be. Tony is a Nicaraguan American guitar player, composer and singer and songwriter who was born without arms. Check out this video and see what is called ‘human spirit’. Also check out this video where Tony speaks about his journey. An amazing and motivating story.

Minchaagi Neenu (cover)

I heard about this song from a couple of my friends in Bangalore and got hooked to it since then. This song has shades of the popular Kannada hit song Anisuthide Yaako Indu from the movie Mungaaru Male but still this is a very beautiful song, thanks to the magical voice of Sonu Nigam. I recorded this over the weekend when I was at home. As I don’t know even a little bit of Kannada, the diction issues are bound to happen. So pardon me for that and let me know what you think of this. 🙂

Song: Minchaagi Neenu
Music: Harikrishna
Originally sung by: Sonu Nigam
Sung by: Jo

Download the song from here (4.15 MB)


Minchaagi Neenu | Upload Music

Padmarajan’s Clara – Part II

[ This post is the second of a two-part post that tries to explain how Clara (from the movie Thoovaanathumpikal by Padmarajan) stands out as one of the most powerful woman characters of Malayalam cinema. The first part is here. ]

Thoovaanathumpikal

[Continued from here]

Clara begins to give shock treatments to Jayakrishnan’s ego from the night they first make love. She tells him that she already knew that Jayakrishnan was not whom he pretended to be. Perhaps it did not matter to her whether ‘He’ is a Jayakrishnan or a Punnoose as she is all prepared to see more of such faces in her life to come. But she is amused by Jayakrishnan’s honesty in love when he proposes to her. She could easily say “yes” to him, but she doesn’t say that. Here she leaves it for us to guess. Is it because she thought that it could be just a result of their physical union? Or is it because she thought that she wouldn’t fit into Jayakrishnan’s world, considering his social and family status? Or is it because she was ambitious and did not want to end up with the role of a mistress at that time? It could be either one of these or all. We don’t know.

Clara leaves the place in silence, in the next morning when Jayakrishnan is not around. She doesn’t want to stay even after Jayakrishnan says that his proposal was not prompted by previous night’s boozing and he is serious about it. We see a shattered Jayakrishnan standing in the empty hotel room after he realizes that Clara has left. He just lost the first woman he ever loved, had sex with, whom he wanted to make his partner for life. At this moment, Clara becomes the most complex and over-powering character of the film than Jayakrishnan.

After some days, Jayakrishnan receives a telegram message from Clara. There is rain in the backdrop which reminds him of Clara. The message says that Clara is coming to town and would like to meet him. By this time Jayakrishnan had fallen in love with another woman – Radha – who is a modern and educated girl. Even though his love for Radha has grown stronger, nothing can stop Jayakrishnan from meeting Clara. So he meets her in the railway station in an early morning, they take a walk around the town and spends a night together. Clara is a little sentimental this time.

Continue reading Padmarajan’s Clara – Part II