The Sculptors of Film Songs (10): Van Shipley

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation)

(Van Shipley earned acclaim for his proficiency in violin and guitar, and he brought out many independent albums of tunes of film songs on these instruments. As such, he was among the well known arrangers and musicians. Yet there is no authentic data of the specific songs in which he played these instruments. Raj Kapoor was highly impressed with him after hearing his violin at a concert and brought him into his team. Thus, Van Shipley got associated with many everlasting songs from RK films.

I thank today’s guest authors Piyush M Pandya and Ashok M Vasihnav for throwing some light on one of the legendary musicians of Hindi films in their series on Arrangers and Musicians. – AK)

(Valentine) Van Shipley (B: 30-8-1927 | D: 8-3-2008) commenced his career in Hindi films by playing violin, he is perhaps better known as ‘The Man with Golden Guitar’. His mother was a skilled sitar player. Valentine’s three brothers and two sisters were talented musicians. However only Valentine Van Shipley went to become a professional musician. Van Shipley took his first violin lessons from Allahabad-based violinist, Gagan Chatterjee. While he was learning Hindustani classical music from noted khayal singers Ustad Bande Hasan Khan and his son, Ustad Zande Hasan Khan, he also took lessons in western music. He continued his training in violin from Ustad Allaudin Khan while he was with AIR, Lucknow. While at Lucknow, he got further training in sarod from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, who was then director of AIR Lucknow. Ustad Vilayat Khan was his classmate. He was friends with Pandit Ravi Shankar whom he had met in 1961.

Van Shipley’s interest in Hindustani classical music led him to develop eight-string guitar in place of the usual five-stringed ones so as to facilitate playing classical raags on guitar. It would indeed have been a great opportunity if we can get to listen his Columbia shellac record of Raag Jogiya and Raag Yaman Kalyan. Van Shipley also designed an electric violin, which he called Gypsy Violin. It is said that he mostly used this violin subsequently. However, we do not have any authentic data of such recordings.

Whether by destiny or by his own choice, he moved to Pune to join Prabhat Studio. Here his first job was to assist Husnlal-Bhagatram for their maiden film, Chand (1944). While in Pune, among many lasting friendships Van Shipley developed were the ones with the then struggling future stars, Dev Anand and Guru Dutt. When Prabhat Studio split, Van Shipley moved to Bombay. His earliest works here were films like Nargis (1946), Anmol Ghadi (1946) and Mera Suhaag (1947). Soon, he was working with music directors like Khemchand Prakash, C Ramchandra, Anil Biswas, Roshan and Ghulam Haider.

Raj Kapoor liked Van Shipley’s performance, in 1947, which he was performing in response to Nutan’s invitation at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. That chance relationship is said to have prompted Raj Kapoor using Van Shipley for all the solo violin pieces in Barsaat (1949)

[Note: Please refer to a few of the authentic blogs which carry this story: Van Shipley – Cinemaazi.com | The Masters: Van Shipley – Conversations Over Chai | The Vivid – Van Shipley – Dinesh S Ghate – Swaralap.com]. However, another article, Background notes: Menezes, Narvekar, and the untold history of violinists in Hindi film music – Rudradeep Bhattacharjee – Scroll.in, puts across a totally different version.

I have one clip wherein credit is given to Van Shipley for violin recitals in Barsaat:

However, since I do not have access to any more third-party authentic source to validate either versions, I have chosen to leave the matter over here and move on with our subject of focus.

Van Shipley’s next major association with RK Films was by way of playing electric guitar piece for iconic dream sequence for Awara (1951). Yet another song for which we get an authentic reference to the electric guitar play of Van Shipley in an RK movie is:

Ye shaam ki tanhaiya – Aah (1953) – Lata Mangeshkar – Lyrics: Shailendra – Music: Shankar Jaikishan

The electric guitar can be heard in interlude @ 1.02 to 1.10.

Even though Van Shipley is credited with contributing his magic of either violin or electric or Hawaiian guitar in more than 1500 songs, there are too few authentic references to the specific songs from where we can listen to such pieces. Here are a few ones that I could lay my hands on:

3. Dil jalta hai to jalne de – Pehli Nazar (1945) Mukesh – Lyrics: Dr Sardar ‘Aah’ Sultanpuri – Music: Anil Biswas

It is violin this time, which seems to follow the voice of Mukesh as a shadow in the song.

And now listen to its instrumental version, played on violin by Van Shipley.

4. Mera sundar sapna beet gaya – Do Bhai (1947) – Geeta Dutt – Lyrics: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan – Music: S D Burman

The song opens with prelude dominated by electric guitar.

We would certainly have heard these two songs from Mahal (1949) many times. However, let us listen to them again focusing on Van Shipley’s play of guitar in these songs.

5. Ayega aanewala – Mahal (1949) – Lata Mangeshkar – Lyrics: Nakhshab Jarchavi – Music: Khemchand Prakash

The prelude of the song is all piano. But as the song runs into its normal flow, electric guitar helps in deepening the mood at every interlude. The guitar is so seamlessly interwoven with the interlude music that one may need to listen these pieces such that focus is to filter out the guitar.

6. Mushkil hai bahut mushkil – Mahal (1949) – Lata Mangeshkar – Lyrics: Nakhshab Jarchavi – Music: Khemchand Prakash

Electric guitar comes in brief strokes (0.18-0.20 / 1.51-1.53) but makes distinct impact even if we listen to song in our normal way.

7. Van Shipley – slide guitar in background pieces of Saza (1951)

8. Jiya o jiya o jiya kuchh to bol do – Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai (1961) – Mohammad Rafi – Lyrics: Hasrat Jaipuri – Music: Shankar-Jaikishan

The electric guitar can be heard in interlude @ 1.12 to 1.20, on a different note @ 1.28 to 1.30, and similarly in the second interlude as well. That small piece is again very smartly used as countermelody piece @ 2.44 to 2.46.

Even more fascinating electric guitar play is in the credit titles of the song, wherein all that was heard in vocals is replicated by electric guitar:

His first independent album – incidentally titled The Man With Golden Guitar, which was to become eponymous identity of Van Shipley – was released in 1962. From then onwards, he went on releasing one album every year, till 1982.

We will try to make up the paucity of more songs which have authentic information about Van Shipley’s role as instrumentalist by picking up a few representative instrumental versions that Van Shipley played for his independent albums.

First a few songs on violin:

9. Dam bhar jo idhar munh phere

10. Gumnam hai koi badnam hai koi

11. Jago sonewalo

And some of his guitar songs:

12. Tum bhi bhula do (Jugnu, 1947 – Noorjehan)

13. Shola jo bhadake

14. Patli kamar hai

15. Teri talash mein

16. Dhire dhire machal ae dil-e-beqarar

17. Kya jaanu sajan hoti hai kya gam ki shaam

This list can go on. However, in order to remain within decent limit of size of the blog post, we will conclude with one clip from a radio program.

18. A Tribute to Van Shipley – Radio Ceylon

The clip has Aaiye meharban and Tum jo mil gaye ho as Van Shipley’s guitar versions, and Rahe na rahe ham, Tu pyar ka sagar hai and Ankhon se jo utari hai tasveer dil mein as violin versions.

As handsome as Van Shipley was, it was obvious that he would get roles to play on the screen for films like Fareb (1953), Dharampatni (1955) and Carnival Queen (1955). According to his own notes, he has acted as hero too in a couple of films. In this dance competition clip form Cha Cha Cha (1964), Van Shipley can be seen – wearing striped T-shirt – in the crowd of fans (@ 6.08 – 6.13 and 6.18 – 6.25):

In another clip, he can be seen playing guitar with as much grace as perhaps the main dancers Bela Bose and Helen.

He was honoured with many awards in India and abroad. In 1967, he was felicitated with an international award for Best Instrumentalist of the Year. He had a rare honour of performing for several heads of state and other such dignitaries when they visited Delhi. Van Shipley was always willing to play for charitable causes like fundraisers for relief measures following various natural disasters such as flood, famine, drought, and for causes such as the Red Cross, Police Welfare, Poor Students and the Blind, Retired Army, Navy and Air force Personnel, Kashmir Floods, Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, etc.

Van Shipley could speak impeccable Urdu. In fact, he had his own calligraphy set so that he can write the language. If this was not enough, he was a fine painter and a keen photographer too.

He died of heart attack in 2008. But the legacy of his music lives on in his family as well as in the hearts of fans of violin and guitar music.

Credits and Disclaimers:
1.The song links have been embedded from the YouTube only for the listening pleasure of music lovers. This blog claims no copyright over these songs, which vests with the respective copyright holders.
2.The photograph is taken from the internet, duly recognising the full copyrights for the same to the either original creator or the site where they were originally displayed.