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Made in India

ANUJ KUMAR talks to the reclusive Biddu about name, notes and Nazia Hassan

PHOTO: K. GOPINATHAN

DISCO KING Biddu is responsible for marketing new voices and introducing new beats

Come winter and Biddu Appaiah is here. Yes, every year the Spain-based music composer credited with bringing the disco wave to India spends a few months in the country, composing music. "It is to escape the chilly winter of Spain where I live with my wife and son. This year I have composed an album `Shut up and Dance' and a song for the film Shootout at Lokhandwala."

At 62, doesn't the name Biddu sound odd? "Sometimes it does, but it's my legal name, I am just Biddu in passport and driving licence," he quips.

Originally from Coorg, Biddu started his career as a guitar player, but "with hardly any takers for Western music" then, he left for London. "There I had to do odd jobs like making hamburgers before my career got on course." Most of us might know him as the man behind "Aap Jaisa Koi" from Qurbani and later "Made in India" with Alisha Chinoy but on the international stage he made it big when he lifted the careers of Tina Charles, Jimmy James and Carl Douglas with a series of hits in the 1970s. In fact, "Aap Jaisa Koi" was inspired by a Tina Charles number.

"I was never interested in scoring music for Hindi films. The only reason was I wanted my mother in Bangalore to know her son has made it. She was not aware that I am a known name in London. Those were the Doordarshan days, which played only classical music or film songs. Fortunately, Feroze Khan came up with the offer. Those were the days when disco was making its appearance in Asia and Feroze wanted a catchy song."

The find

Talking about his find, the Pakistani singer Nazia Hassan, who went on to become the first foreign singer to win a Filmfare Award for "Aap Jaisa Koi", Biddu says, "Feroze is a bit of a gambler. We found her at a party in London. She was just 15 then but had a personality. She had a nasal twang. `Aap Jaisa Koi' was recorded in London and it was the first Hindi song to be recorded on 24 tracks."

"Boom Boom" in Star followed and soon came "Disco Deewane", the non-film album with Nazia and her brother. "It was first of its kind in India. The initial order was of 25,000 cassettes but it recorded a sale of five lakh cassettes. But then her brother started asking for a control over recording. Before things got worse, we amicably parted ways."

Years later he introduced another brother-sister duo in the form of Shaan and Sagarika. "I made Shantanu, Shaan. Those were the days when India was opening up shedding its socialist stance so I composed `Made In India' to capture that sentiment. I always love to work with new voices, be it Alisha or Abhijeet Sawant."

His latest album may be all about dance where his favourite Shaan has sung a grooving number "Soota", but Biddu is not impressed with the near absence of "medium tempo melody".

"It seems music composers are following like sheep. Even in scripts, which require lyrics-driven songs they put in beat-driven numbers." He gives the example of his song in "Shootout... " which he has written himself. "Going with the subject it is not a frothy number. It is a deep song in English focussing on `live by the gun'." He talks of another big project in the offing but stops short of naming it. Is it Kurbani? "Who knows, my experience tells me never talk of a project before it is sealed."

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