Ram Narayan - Career

Career

Narayan travelled to Lahore in 1943 and auditioned for the local All India Radio (AIR) station as a singer, but the station's music producer, Jivan Lal Mattoo, noticed grooves in Narayan's fingernails: sarangis are played by pressing the fingernails sideways against three playing strings, which strains the nails. Mattoo instead employed Narayan as a sarangi player. Traditionally, the sarangi is supposed to play after the singer and imitate the vocal performance, and play in the space between phrases. Mattoo advised Narayan and helped him contact khyal singer Abdul Wahid Khan, a rigorous teacher under whom Narayan learned four ragas through singing lessons. Narayan was allowed sporadic solo performances on AIR and began to consider a solo career.

After the partition of India in 1947, Narayan moved to Delhi and played at the local AIR station. His work for popular singers increased his repertoire and knowledge of styles. Narayan played with the classical singers Omkarnath Thakur, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Hirabai Badodekar, and Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, and he accompanied singer Amir Khan in 1948, when Khan sang for the first time at AIR Delhi following the partition. As an accompanist for vocalists, Narayan showed his own talent and came to the foreground. Singers of the city complained that he was not a dependable accompanist and too assertive, but he maintained he wanted to keep vocalists in tune and inspire them in a cordial contest. Other tabla (percussion) players and singers, including Omkarnath Thakur and Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, expressed admiration for Narayan's playing.

Narayan became frustrated with his supporting role for vocalists and moved to Mumbai in 1949 to work independently in film music and recording. He recorded three solo 78 rpm gramophone records for the British HMV Group in 1950 and an early ten-inch LP album in Mumbai in 1951, but the album was not in demand. The Mumbai film industry offered a good salary and obscurity for work that would have lowered his stature among classical musicians. For the next 15 years he played and composed songs for films, including Adalat, Gunga Jumna, Humdard, Kashmir Ki Kali, Milan, Mughal-e-Azam, and Noorjehan. He was considered a desired choice of film music director O. P. Nayyar.

Narayan performed in Afghanistan in 1952 and in China in 1954 and was well received in both countries. His first solo concert at a 1954 music festival in the Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Mumbai, was cut short when an impatient audience, waiting for performances by famous artists, drove him from the stage. Narayan pondered giving up the sarangi and becoming a singer. He later regained confidence, performed solo for smaller crowds, and was favourably received in his second attempt to play solo for a Mumbai music festival in 1956. He has since performed at the major music festivals of India. Narayan later gave up accompaniment; this decision carried a financial risk because interest in solo sarangi was not yet substantial.

After sitar player Ravi Shankar successfully performed in Western countries, Narayan followed his example. He recorded solo albums and made his first international tour in 1964 to America and Europe with his older brother Chatur Lal, a tabla player who had toured with Shankar in the 1950s. The European tour included performances in France, Germany, sponsored by the Goethe-Institut, and at the City of London Festival, England. Beginning in the 1960s, Narayan often taught and gave concerts outside of India. On his Western tours he encountered interest in the sarangi because of its similarity to cello and violin. The tabla player Suresh Talwalkar became a frequent accompanist for Narayan in the late 1960s. Narayan continued to perform and record in India and abroad for the next decades and his recordings appeared on Indian, American, and European labels. During the early 1980s he typically spent months each year visiting Western nations. Narayan performed less frequently in the 2000s and rarely in the 2010s.