Sunil Ganguly

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Sunil Ganguly (died June 14, 1999) was an Indian musician who played the Hawaiian electric guitar. He made a number of records of Indian film music on the HMV label.^[1]

Sunil Ganguly was born at Sonamura village in Tripura^[2]. He re-created a number of popular hit Bollywood songs, from the films of 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s, on guitar^[3]. He trained under the great Pt. Pannalal Ghosh, also the guru of the renowned vocalist Pt. Ajay Chakrabarty. Ganguly, therefore, had a profound knowledge of North Indian Classical music and had a unique gayaki style with which he played the guitar.He has a number of compositions based on various ragas (like Malkauns,Kedar,etc) and also dhuns- one of them being a Bhairavi-Bilaskhani Todi Dhun in which he combined the two ragas. His compositions are full of meends (sliding movements) and various other ornamentations Hindusthani classical music which are used especially in vocal Hindusthani classical music (and hence the gayaki style).A good degree of technical mastery is required to play his compositions correctly and with ease.^{[citation needed]} Some of his remarkable records include 'Ghazal chedi usne', an album of instrumentals of ghazals by prominent singers like Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh. His recording career spanned more than 40 yrs from 1957, when he cut his first album from HMV. He died in Kolkata on June 14, 1999, after a protracted illness.

[edit] Discography

His HMV records include:

• Electric Guitar (1975) S/MOCE 3006
• Electric Guitar Hindi Film Tunes (1979) S/MOCE 3015
• The Classic Touch (Electric Guitar) (1980) S/MOCE 3016
• Swinging Hits (1980) S/MOCE 3018
• Milon Gupta (1980) S/MOCE 3019

[edit] Notes

1. ^ The Gramophone Company of India (HMV) Records Listing
2. ^ Guitarist Ganguli dead. The Tribune (1999-06-14). Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
3. ^ When Melody Was Queen: Film Instrumentals Archive. Sangeet Mahal: The music greats. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.