Laxmikant-Pyarelal - Music Career

Music Career

In their early days, Laxmi-Pyare's music was very similar to Shankar-Jaikishan's music, as Laxmikant was a great fan of theirs. Once Shankar even changed his orchestration to make sure that his music did not sound like Laxmi-Pyare's. Laxmi-Pyare's first film as music directors was not released. The first released movie which featured them as music directors was Babubhai Mistry's Parasmani (1963), which was a costume drama. All the songs of the film became immensely popular esp. "Hasata Hua Nurani Chehara", "Wo Jab Yaad Aaye" and "Mere Dil Main Halki Si". Throughout their tenure as music directors, Laxmi-Pyare only used A-grade singers. Their mentors, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi, agreed to sing for them in spite of low budgets, and Laxmi-Pyare always remained indebted to them. In fact, both Mohammad Rafi and Lata have sung the maximum number of songs in their career for Laxmi-Pyare.They continued to give patronage to Mohammed Rafi, sometimes against filmmakers' wishes. They had a great rapport with Kishore Kumar as well. Kishore Kumar sang maximum songs (402) for LP among all male singers, followed by Rafi(about 365 songs).

Laxmi-Pyare hit the big time with Rajshri Productions' 1964 film Dosti. The film had two newcomer heroes who never became popular, and the film was a success due to its music. Songs like Chahoonga main tujhe shaam savere and Rahi manava became very popular. At that time, many used to think that there was a single person by the name of Laxmikant Pyarelal. Laxmi-Pyare won their first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for the movie, ahead of stalwarts like Shankar-Jaikishan (for Sangam) and Madan Mohan (for Woh Kaun Thi?). Then came Lootera a super hit musical non star cast film which is remembered only because of Lata Manageshkar’s super hit songs with Laxmikant-Pyarelal.

In 1966 LP started cementing their place in Hindi Film Music. LP’s first musical hit film, with big star cast, Aaye Din Bahar Ke was released, followed by Pyar Kiye Jaa. Even in films with lesser-known actors, LP scored hit music: Sati Sawitri (Songs:"Tum Gagan Ke Chandram Ho", "Jeevan Dor Tumhi Sang Bandhi", "Kabhi To Miloge"); Sant Gyaneshwar (Songs: "Jyot Se Jyot Jagate Chalo", "Khabar More Na Line"); Hum Sab Ustaad Hai (Songs: "Pyar Batate Chalo", "Ajanabi Tum Jane Pehachane Se"); Mr. X in Bombay (Songs: "Mere Mehaboob Quayamat Hogi", "Chali Re Chali Re Gori", "Khoobsurat Haseena"); Shriman Fantush..(Songs: "Sultana Sultana Tu Na Ghabarana", "Yeh Dard Bhara Afasana").

In 1967, LP consolidated their position in the Hindi film inddustry with a series of hits by one after another. Non star cast film Farz was LP’s first golden jubilee musical hit followed by big star cast films like Anita, Shagird, yet another Golden Jubilee hit, Patthar Ke Sanam, Night In London, Jaal and another evergreen musical hit Milan. LP received their second Filmfare Trophy for Milan without any stiff competition. The rise of Laxmi-Pyare, Rahul Dev Burman, and Kalyanji-Anandji marked the end of an old era of Bollywood music, which belonged to Shankar-Jaikishan, Sachin Dev Burman, Naushad (Mausicar-e-azam), C. Ramchandra, Khayyam, Madan Mohan, O. P. Nayyar, Roshan and others. Big film producing names, like Prasad Productions, Rajashri Productions, J. Om Prakash, Raj Khosla, Manoj Kumar, Ramamand Sagar, Madan Mohla, Mohan Sahagal, V.Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra, Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai and many more, started replacing their regular music directors and preferred Laxmikant-Pyarelal on regular basis and in return LP have given an outstanding music to justify the replacement with big names.

The team of Laxmi-Pyare and lyricist Anand Bakshi churned out some of the most popular songs in Hindi Cinemas history. The combo composed songs for more than 250 movies. Anand Bakshi was the lyricist who wrote the maximum number of texts Laxmi-Pyare gave music to. He was actually the lyricist for all the films for which Laxmi-Pyare won Filmfare Awards, except their very first award.