She was the queen of jazz ballads in India. And undoubtedly the biggest jazz singer the country has ever produced. Cyberspace was on Wednesday filled with tributes from people who have been mesmerised by her crooning, people she has influenced, and even people who barely knew her. In India, it hasn’t gotten bigger than Pam Crain, a voice that Mumbai and Kolkata fight to call their own.

His heart beats for India. And so do his hands. Immensely talented English percussionist Pete Lockett is back in Mumbai and will once again drum up frenzied applause as he takes to the stage tonight.

Monica Dogra is a familiar face in the live music scene in Mumbai.

The Indian rock music scene (indie, Hindi/Kannada/Tamil, heavy, metal, hard, soft and whatever else have you) has to thrive on social networking sites and gigs to really push forth their content at a time when CD sales are painfully low and merchandise like T-shirts and mugs are deemed as more money-worthy than albums themselves.

Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma, the titular king of Tripura, is everything you wouldn’t expect a maharaja to be. For starters, there are no secretaries, public relations personnel or other such plebeians making access to him a long-winding, protocol-ridden process.

Light My Fire has been a college rock anthem for every student who went through the rite of passage called The Doors. Jim Morrison’s sonorous voice is rarely drowned in a song, but Ray Manzarek, the organ player, keyboardist and founding member of the band created the most psychedelic sound that went on to define the song and with it, the tone of The Doors as we know of it today.

Adegbenga Adejumo a.k.a Benga is credited with pioneering the dubstep movement, electronic dance music’s most popular sub-genre at the moment. Teaming up with fellow British producer Skream, Benga was one of the first producers of dubstep and has played a pivotal role in the changing face of the genre.

Alaa Wardi bought some empty cartons from a departmental store and arranged them around his room. This ensured that the sound from within the room didn’t percolate. This Riyadh-based Iranian sound engineer then worked every night on singing, recording and mixing songs, to avoid any sudden traffic noise interferences.

For years Amit Khanna wrote poetry as a form of private expression. He would occasionally quote his own work but the most public of his poems was through songwriting for films and television shows.

The heat hits you like it would in any other town in Colombia. But the word ‘Macondo’ was splattered across walls and shop shutters. There are messages in Spanish written on walls with sketches of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (fondly called Gabo), and for the non-Spanish speaking follower of the Nobel laureate’s works, the only words my group of friends recognised were his name and Macondo.