Indian Rock - Early History

Early History

India, uniquely then amongst developing markets, had a record industry in the Gramophone Company of India (an RCA/HMV/EMI subsidiary), and LPs, EPs, and 45rpm records were freely available, including those of rock and roll acts from the USA and Britain, but also of contemporary pioneering Indian rock bands. The president of the firm, Bhaskar Menon (who later became the President of Capitol Records in the United States) was the leading promoter of Western pop music in India. Later in 1970, Polydor, the German Label, began an India label distributing rock music.

Of these mid-1960s beat groups, as they were then termed, one of the most notable were the Mystiks from Bombay, the Beat-X from Madras, and the Flintstone from Calcutta, who composed and played both early British Invasion influenced songs, and post-Sgt. Pepper hard rock. These bands had successful EP and LP releases and played regularly on the Indian university and college music circuits. Also notable from this period (1964–1970) was the female R&B singer, Usha Iyer, now Usha Uthup, who had successful covers of "Jambalaya" and The Kingston Trio song, "Greenback Dollar". A notable compilation LP titled "Simla Beat '70" was released during this period, from a contest of the same name. The winning bands recorded their versions of Western hard rock of the time. This tradition of covering Western rock would continue until the 1980s, when it was more common to compose original songs.

The rock n' roll scene was also closely followed by Junior Statesman (or simply JS), a magazine started in 1965 contemporaneously with Rolling Stone magazine in the USA and NME in the UK.

Like Western rock musicians at the time, Indian musicians also began fusing rock with traditional Indian music from the mid-1960s onwards. Many of these songs were often filmi songs produced for popular Bollywood films, which often overshadowed the country's independent rock scene. Some of the more well known early rock songs (including styles such as funk rock, pop rock, psychadelic rock, raga rock, and soft rock) from Bollywood films include Mohammed Rafi's "Jaan Pehechan Ho" in Gumnaam (1965), Kishore Kumar's "O Saathi Re" in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), and Asha Bhosle songs such as "Dum Maro Dum" in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), "Ae Naujawan Hai Sab" in Apradh (1972), and "Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana" in Don (1978).