Dr. Padmanabh K. Joshi on SJ ..."SJ worked independently and never totally relied on anyone"

First of all let me thank the SJ Group for welcoming me as a new member of the group.I have written a musical biography of Shanker-Jaikishan in GUJARATI but it will be also published in Hindi and in English.I knew the whole SJ team, namely, Shanker, Jaikishan, Shailendraji,Hasratji, Sebastian and Dattaramji. The book is based on my experiences and interactions with the team members.I being a Hindi Film music lover, I have tried to study almost all the music directors and also written articles on each of them but they were published in Gujarati. I also met Laxmikant-Pyarelal and spoke to them about SJ. Their first sentence was that when they decided to become Music Directors, their only dream was to become SHANKER-JAIKISHAN....With this dream they started their career. A great Music Director like O. P. Nayyar also mentioned SJ as his most favourite Music Director. When asked OP why SJ? His answer in real sense convinced me that SJ were the greatest among the all because according to OP, SJ were the only music directors in the Hindi Film Industry who had consistency in their work. In other words, SJ composed most popular and successful music from Barsat till Mera Naam Joker-a period of 20 years - during which they gave more than 100 movies. No other music director in the industry has this much consistency. OP himself mentioned that even he gave 2 excellent music movies and after that 5 of his movies miserably failed. But such a thing never happened with SJ. In addition, SJ all the time did experimentations as well as innovations in their music. SJ never depended on any musician. Even while creating both interlude music as well as background music, SJ themselves worked seriously as they worked on their melodies. For SJ songs, interlude music and the background music were equal. As Sebastian had mentioned to me that with SJ, he did as per the instructions of SJ. Though he sometimes suggested music but normally he had to follow SJ always. Goody Sirvai mentioned that once he was trying a music piece on his accordian and Shanker took the accordion from Goody and played the piece and told Goody to repeat the same piece in the recording. What I am trying to convey is that SJ worked independently and never totally relied on anyone. Anyway, this discussion is based on my experiences with SJ team. In future I shall try to discuss SJ style of music with examples. Thanksto all SJ group members.Regards.Padmanabh K. Joshi
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