Laxmikant Pyarelal - From Asistants to Masters (Did You Know - 12)

There is an interesting trend of forming a team of two persons as Music Directors in Bollywood. The origin of this tradition goes back to the time of Black & White movies and some of the most famous evergreen songs were given birth by different music director duos still fondly remembered till date.

In my opinion the main idea behind this trend must have come from the centuries old tradition of “Qawwali” Singers, where normally there is a team of two main lead singers supported by more artists at the back. Like “Shankar-Shambhu”, “Sabri Brothers” and many more. May be there is another history behind this but no doubt, this trend has given us thousands of songs to cherish and enjoy in many decades to come like our life support.

Interestingly the famous music director duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal, before making into the lime light, were first assistants to another famous music director duo Kalyanji- Anandji.

Laxmikant, was more inclined towards composing and Pyarelal into the arrangement. In fact Pyarelal is considered to be one of the top 5 arrangers in Hindi Film Music History, with outstanding knowledge of Indian Musical Instruments Arrangements.

Laxmikant–Pyarelal popularly known as “LP” were nominated for the Best Music Directors in their very first film itself which was “Parasmani” (1963), but it was “Dosti” (1964), for which they got their first Filmfare award for Best Music Director.

And since then they were nominated almost each and every year for their successful musical scores for more than a decade.

Cheers!