Out of the studio, into the hearts of listeners

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From Elvis Presley’s rendition of Pocketful of Rainbow to Kurt Cobain on Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York album, studio sessions/live concert recordings often give unseen glimpses into an artiste’s personality. Their conversations, one-liners and goof ups — all recorded on tape, gives listeners, even years later, a sense of the person behind the legend — funny, witty and often very engaging. Unfortunately, Indian musicians haven’t tapped into the potential of sessions albums as yet.

Indian Ocean’s Rahul Ram says, “Camaraderie, laughter — all this is very much a part of any artiste’s studio sessions. But here the tendency is to not record them. Sometimes, when you meet a musician he/she may have a completely different personality than you would expect from listening to their music, and sessions recordings would certainly give you a glimpse of their other side. But is there a big market for this sort of thing in India — I don’t know. Indians are very conscious about their public image and even if you take someone like Rahman, he’s a very private person. How much of himself would he want to reveal to listeners?”
Other artistes ascribe the lack of such albums to the indifference of the record companies. Shankar Mahadevan, whose recent live performance with Ustad Zakir Hussain drew much acclaim, says, “On stage, you do see artistes revealing a lot more of their personality to the audience. The equation between the performers also comes out very well. But it doesn’t translate into an album simply because of the priority that record companies give to Bollywood music. All other forms of music get step-motherly treatment. We (Ustad Zakir Hussain and I) may come out with an international album based on our performance, but not in India. Not until the marketing, copyright laws improve in our favour.”
Shankar’s band mate Ehsaan Noorani agrees that copyright laws need a major rehaul before the trend can find a foothold in India. However, he says Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have already tried to make some of these elements available for their fans to enjoy. “I think it is extremely important to involve our audiences in the process of composing music. We would love to get behind-the-scenes tidbits for our fans and we’ve started something on those lines through an iPhone application. But copyright issues are a major hindrance.”