Well this was a breath of fresh air to end 1978 on. After what felt like relentless doomcore and bleak experimentalism, this is just pure joyful kitsch.
RD Burman was a big-name composer for Bollywood, and between around 1972 and 1984 pretty much won Best Musical Director every year (bar a couple) in the Filmfare Awards (kind of the Indian Oscars). I’m not too sure of the plot of Shalimar, other than it seems to be some kind of heist movie (English title: Raiders of the Sacred Stone) and starred Rex Harrison and Sylvia Mills as well as Indian actors. Perhaps that dual-nation nature of it was why it was chosen, but I understand this is also considered one of Burman’s best soundtracks.
And, it’s pretty experimental in its own way. The opening title sequence I can only describes as a bhangra John Barry (shades of the mighty Laurie Johnson, composer for a billion adventure/espionage TV shows of the Sixties and Seventies, also show through). The track Countess’ Caper starts off with some standard spy film music, then abruptly turns into a sea shanty, then back to the orchestra, then some kind of Mariachi music, before back to the orchestral spy film. And yet, it works. And the trumpet on the Mariachi bit (possibly by Joseph Monsorate) is absolutely virtuoso.
One Two Cha Cha Cha is a great number with Usha Uthup on vocals (another Filmfare winner). I don’t know who “Mr Naidu” is that she’s talking to when he goes off on a sitar raga rather than sticking to the Latin rhythm as there’s no-one by that name either as a film character or in Burman’s considerable list of musical collaborators. It’s great, exhuberant fun.
[Edit: I sought the film out on Amazon (free with Prime, yes, I helped pay for Bezos' fancy wedding) and the opening scene is a dance class where this number features. Mr Naidu/Naidhu is a comedic figure who is dressed partly in Western clothes (like all the rest of the characters) and partly dressed in traditional Indian dress - I think it's a lungi, as sported by Ghandi. I wonder if he's meant to be a bit daft and unsophisticated, because his presentation is goofy. On the other hand, the dance teacher who is "singing" the song gets caught up in doing a traditional dance with him rather than the cha-cha for a moment. The film is exactly as you'd expect from a Seventies Bollywood heist film - it'd take me ages to summarise the convoluted plot of the first ten minutes alone, but it's a lot of fun].
The theme, Shalimar, is a swirling and lush slow number; It’s not Uthup on vocals this time, I think, but I’ve no idea who the singer is. She’s great. This ones in Hindi, as are many of the lyrics, some tracks are in English, some are a mix; the whole album being a glorious blending of Indian and Western music traditions in a very different, more colourful, way than the Sixties psychedelia musicians managed.
I think that it may be the same as with The Incredible Bongo Band, that once the novelty wears off it won’t be as good, but to be honest the music stands on its own without the novelty. My one complaint is that as before, that Dimery really overlooks non-Western music. I’d happily sacrifice one middling New Wave album for one more album of “world” music.
And, my my, we’re at the end of 1978.
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