Sunil Ganguly


Sunil Ganguly was an Indian instrumentalist from the city of Kolkata who played the Hawaiian electric guitar. He created many albums from HMV, Concorde Records, Sagarika, during his long career with his instrumental renditions of Indian Hindi film songs, Classical based songs, Ghazals of prominent composers like Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, Bade Ghulam Ali, Bengali film songs and modern songs, Nazrulgeeti, Rabindrasangeet and popularised the Hawaiian guitar in India. His renditions often had subtle twists and turns that made it even more melodious than the original song.
At his peak, there used to be two LPs, released during the yearly Puja celebration, by HMV; one containing songs by Lata Mangeshkar, and the other having instrumentals by Sunil Ganguly. The instrumental film hits he recorded were hits with the youth, in Bengal as well as all over India. Sunil Ganguly was a very busy artist in his heyday, and did many public performances all over India, including Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Patna, Guwahati, Agartala etc. He did one-man whole night shows in Mumbai, played in reputed College fests like the IITs, Regional Engineering Colleges. He had a big group of musicians accompanying him on his performances, and recreating the songs, and some of the best musicians of the era, like Sri Y S Mulki, Sri Dilip Roy, Sri Samir Khasnabis, Sri Swapan Sen, Sri Manohari Singh accompanied him on his recordings and performances. A sample of the kind of atmosphere he created with his renditions can be found here. He was a regular performer at Doordarshan programs in Kolkata and Mumbai, AIR, Radio Ceylon. His radio programs were popular and were listened to by many all over India and abroad, and this program continues to this date, over the internet. He inspired an entire young generation to listen and play Indian music on the Hawaiian guitar. He had many number of successful students, who are continuing his style of playing songs and in turn are coaching students in India and abroad.

Life and career

Ganguly was born at Sonamura village in Tripura on 1 January 1938.
He moved with his parents to Kolkata in his childhood.
He had a fondness for the Hawaiian guitar from a very early age. At this time his uncle used to take him to various music programs in Kolkata. It was his uncle who bought him a guitar. However, he did not know where to learn this. He used to visit Sri Sujit Nath, one of the fathers of Hawaiian guitar music in Kolkata, at the time. But he used to sit quietly at his classes, not having the money to pay the fees for taking lessons. He has mentioned in his last interview, he got lot of love and affection from Sri Sujit Nath, though he never learnt from him in class.
At the insistence of his relatives he participated in All India Youth Guitar competition which was quite well known at the time, and came first, to his own amazement, by playing 'Kya karoon Sajani, Aye na Balam'. Present at the competition was Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He was so impressed by the rendition, he went up on the stage and embraced Sunil Ganguly and expressed his amazement at how such a song could be rendered on the Guitar. He then recommended Sunil Ganguly's name to All India Radio / Akashvani with a letter, and this is how Sunil Ganguly started playing on radio.
At this time he trained in Western music under Oscar Jones, a reputed teacher in Calcutta at that time. But this could not satisfy him. He was fond of Indian classical music, and used to attend the music conferences. Many a times he could not afford to buy a ticket, and hence used to listen from the pavements outside.
He later trained under the sitarist Pt. Ajoy Sinha Roy, who himself was a direct disciple of Baba Alauddin Khan. Ganguly, therefore, had a profound knowledge of North Indian Classical music. He developed a style of playing Classical Raga-based dhuns and gats on the Hawaiian guitar, which was his own unique style. He was the first to bring in the 'gayaki' style of playing which was non-existent at the time, and this led to the huge popularity of the instrumentals he rendered on the Hawaiian guitar, be it classical based film songs, ghazals, Tagore songs, Nazrul songs, or other popular songs. He played a wide variety of songs in his career, including Hindi film songs, rare songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Ghazals, by Jagjit Singh, Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Bengali film songs, Tagore songs, Nazrulgeeti, Bengali songs of prominent composers like Satinath Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, Hemanta Mukherjee, Bihu songs in Assamese language
His recording career spanned more than 40 years from 1957, when he cut his first album from HMV. The famous Bengali singer and composer of that era, Sri Satinath Mukhopadhyay played a major role in introducing Sunil Ganguly to HMV. The incident goes : Satinath babu listened Ganguly's rendition of his composition 'Koto nishi gechhe nidhara' sung by Lata Mangeshkar, on Akashbani and being amazed, called upon Ganguly and inquired how he got to learn this song. Ganguly replied : he did not learn from anybody, it was his own rendition by listening to the song. Satinath babu immediately recognized his talent and decided to introduce Sunil Ganguly to HMV for cutting his first album. That was the beginning and Ganguly did not have to look back after that. Some of his remarkable records include 'Ghazal chedi usne' - an album of instrumentals of ghazals by prominent singers such as Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali,'Ibteda' - an album of compositions by Jagjit Singh,'The Classic Touch','Sentimental Journey','The Golden Collection - All Time Greats, Vol I and II','Swinging hits','More hits','Magic Melody','Instrumental Film Hits','Sunil Ganguly ','The Singing Guitar' - with Kazi Anirudha, 'Encore - Electric Guitar','Renaissance - Tunes of Kazi Nazrul Islam on the guitar ', 'Khelicho E Biswa Loye - Nazrulgeeti tunes', 'Surer Jharna - instrumental of Bengali hits', 'Tribute to Hemanta Mukherjee - Hemanta Mukherjee songs' etc. Towards the later part of his career, Sunil Ganguly made a few beautiful albums from Concorde records and Sagarika Co., 'Yaadein', 'Golden greats from Yesteryears' from Sagarika. HMV has released many of this instrumentals on YouTube, and many of his instrumentals are available for purchase on Saregama site. His instrumentals are available on HMV India, Amazon, saavn.com, gaana.com iTunes store, and YouTube.
He was active in giving music classes at his residence, and in doing recordings, until the last day. He took music classes at several institutions in Kolkata like BaniChakra, Technique Studio, in addition to the ones at his residence in Garia. Students used to come from far away places to his residence classes, including places like Asansol, Durgapur, Odisha, Tripura. He was revered by his students, and was a strict disciplinarian. His way of teaching was very methodical, using Indian notation system. He made many number of compositions and dhuns based on various Ragas, and he used these to train his students for number of years before they were allowed to play a song. Ganguly also had a sharp background of Western music, including chords. He was very fond of the Spanish guitar and chords. Whenever he used to teach a song to his students, it used to be complete with interlude music, chords, and some of these interludes were quite intricate and high in complexity.The notations that he created for his large number of classical Raaga based dhuns, and the songs he played, were very detailed, and intricate. Within one beat, meends with as many as 5 or 7 notes were common. Students had to practice classical Raaga based dhuns and gats for quite a few years before playing a song. There was no excuse of less practice in his classes, and there was no way to advance to a next lesson before getting the current lesson right with the tabla and to his satisfaction. Unless he was satisfied about the total presentation he would not go to a more complex piece. Special mention must be made here about his accompanist on the Tabla : Sri Jasodadulal Mukherjee, who accompanied him in class and recordings for a long 30+ yrs. Mr Mukjerjee, has groomed many students, by playing the tabla with them, and guiding them with the finer nuances of Rhythm cycle, and is continuing to do so, having a very detailed knowledge of the dhuns composed by Sri Sunil Ganguly. During his recordings, Sunil Ganguly created notations for every accompanying musician before playing a song. There has been instances when, in a music program at Guwahati, he has been requested a popular song for which he was unprepared. He quickly created notations of the song and played it with perfection.
He did not encourage performing in the media at any time. According to him, the guitar is to be played like a prayer, to derive true happiness. He was an ardent follower of Swami Vivekananda till his last day. Sunil Ganguly had many disciples, many of whom took the guitar as a profession. The music classes based on his way of teaching are kept going by the creation of Sunil Ganguly Academy of Music, at his residence, run by Sri Aloke Ghosh, one of his disciples. Apart from this many of his students like Smt Sonali Nath, Smt Geeta Deb, Sri Shyamal Chowdhury, Sri Amarnath Banik at Agartala, Tripura are continuing to play and teach his style of music to this date. Each year on 1 January his students assemble at his residence in Garia and pay tributes to this legendary guitarist till today.

Discography

; His Concord Records Label include:
; Cassettes from HMV :
; Cassettes from Sagarika Acoustronics:
; Cassettes from Concord Records:
; CDs from HMV include
; CDs from Sagarika Acoustronics
;Digital albums