Golden Era of Bollywood: C Ramchandra - The Composer who Introduced Rock & Roll Music in India.

He was not only a composer but also a singer. He sang some renowned and unforgettable duets with Lata such as Kitna haseen hai mausam in film Azad or Shola Jo bhadke in Albela. Influenced by Benny Goodman, Ramachandra introduced in his compositions the alto sax in combination with guitar and harmonica.
An outstanding feature of many of these songs is their intense curiosity about western mores and manners; they often employed western musical idioms in exaggerated fashion either for satire or irony. These songs mirrored the curiosity of the educated, urbanized Indian youth.He did numerous experiments in western/Indian and middle-eastern styles. in 'Meri Jaan..Sunday Ke Sunday..' (Shehnai) he introduced the Benny Goodman style of jazz clarinet in combination with an Indian melody. Other westernized songs e.g. 'Shola Jo Bhadke..' and 'Ye Diwana Ye Parwana..' (Albela) employed cabaret type dance featuring bongo drums, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, saxophones, etc. He sang the title song "Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo" with Lata Mangeshkar, which included rock rhythms. He provided the musical score for the scat song "Ina mina dika" in "Aasha".

C Ramchandra with Lata Mangeshkar

He was born on 12th January 1918 in Puntamba, a small town in Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra. He joined the film industry playing the lead role in Y. V. Rao's movie, Naganand. He also had some small roles at Minerva Movietone in the movies Said-e-Havas (1936) and Atma Tarang (1937). He was a good singer, he sang for all the topmost heroes of that time like Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand.
Ramachandra provided harmonium accompaniment for Minerva composers Bindu Khan and Habib Khan. He debuted as music director in Tamil movies with Jayakkodi and Vana Mohini. He received public notice as a good composer in Bhagwan Dada's "Sukhi Jeevan", and established a long association that culminated with the musical box office hit "Albela".
C. Ramachandra's biggest success as a music composer was the 1953 movie Anarkali starring Beena Roy in the title role and Pradeep Kumar. The songs that he composed for this movie are today legendary. Songs of this movie like "Yeh Zindagi Usiki Hai", "Mujhse Mat Poochh Mere Ishq Main Kya Rakha Hai", He gave the hit music of V Shantaram's Navrang.

C.Ramchandra with Kavi Pradeep &Lata-Mangeshkar

He was the composer of the highly popular patriotic song "Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo", which was sung by Lata Mangeshkar and penned by poet Pradeep,
He died on 5 January 1982 in Mumbai.

Some of his great songs