Guest article by Shalan Lal
(In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona. This was published on 2 May 2019. The second part, dealing with the second decade of the 1940s, and chorus songs from this era, gives a good insight into the main trends during this period and style of music. I compliment Shalan Lal on another well-researched article and thank her on behalf of the readers for her painstaking work. Shalan Lal is a UK-based academic. – AK)
Three Decades of Chorus Songs
Introduction and the Second Decade 1941-50
Now into the tuneful forties.
In this section we discuss how the choruses and musical accompaniment in the films already established by the studio-based film companies had been used by the other companies to further the art of songs and chorus songs to their advantage.
The three film companies, New Theatres, Prabhat, and Bombay Talkies, mentioned in the first part of this series, developed internal institutional troubles and towards the end of the forties they were going to be dissolved or go limping to vanish; so more or less individual music directors became independent and allowed themselves to be hired by the film companies and the individual entrepreneurs to do contracted piece-work and free to do work for other companies on contracts. The reason for this was that the studios themselves would go on renting their space and facilities to other companies as well. Music directors would hire outside halls to rehearse their songs. As playback became gradually became the norm, the recording studios would need their studios booked in advanced.