Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar

Laxmikant–Pyarelal were an Indian composer duo, consisting of Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar (1937–1998) and Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma (born 1940).

Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar was born on the day of Laxmi Pujan, Dipawali on 3 November 1937.

Probably, because of the day of his birth, his parents named him Laxmikant, after the goddess Laxmi.

His father died when he was a child.

Because of the poor financial condition of the family he could not complete his academic education either.

Laxmikant's father's friend, a musician himself, advised Laxmikant and his elder brother to learn music.

Accordingly, Laxmikant learned to play the mandolin and his elder brother learned to play the tabla.

He spent two years in the company of the well-known mandolin player Hussain Ali.

He began organising and performing in Indian Classical instrumental music concerts to earn some money.

Later, in the 1940s, he also learned mandolin from Bal Mukund Indorker and violin from Husnalal (of the Husanlal Bhagatram fame).

Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma (born 3 September 1940) is the son of a renowned trumpeter Pandit Ramprasad Sharma (popularly known as Babaji), who taught him the basics of music.

He started learning violin at the age of 8 and practised it 8 to 12 hours daily.

He learnt to play violin from a Goan musician named Anthony Gonsalves.

The song "My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves" from the movie Amar Akbar Anthony is regarded as a tribute to Mr. Gonsalves (the movie had music by Laxmikant–Pyarelal).

By the age of 12, his family's financial condition had deteriorated, which in turn forced him to earn money by playing in studios.

Pyarelal then used to frequent and play the violin in studios such as Ranjit Studios, to earn money for his family.

Pyarelal's brother Gorakh Sharma played guitar for various songs composed by the duo Lakshmikant Pyarelal.

In an interview with Annu Kapoor recently, he has mentioned that he was quite an adept violinist and expert in western form of music.

Pyarelal even thought to try his fortune in the West and wanted to become a regular orchestra player with a renowned group.

Lakshmikant dissuaded him and then they started the amazing journey of music for Indian cinema.

In their early days, Laxmikant–Pyarelal's music was very similar to Shankar–Jaikishan's music, as Laxmikant was a great fan of theirs.

Once Shankar even changed his orchestration to make sure that his music did not sound like Laxmikant–Pyarelal's. Laxmikant–Pyarelal's first film as music directors was not released.

Laxmikant began his film career as a child actor in the films Bhakt Pundalik (1949) and Aankhen (1950).

He also acted in some Gujarati films.

They composed music for about 750 Hindi movies from 1963 to 1998, working for almost all notable filmmakers, including Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shakti Samanta, Manmohan Desai, Yash Chopra, K. Balanchander, Boney Kapoor, J. Om Prakash, Raj Khosla, L V Prasad, Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt, K Viswanath and Manoj Kumar.

The first released movie which featured them as music directors was Babubhai Mistry's Parasmani (1963), which was a costume drama.

All the songs of the film became immensely popular, esp. "Hansta Hua Nurani Chehara", "Wo Jab Yaad Aaye" and "Mere Dil Main Halki Si".

Throughout their tenure as music directors, Laxmikant–Pyarelal only used A-grade singers.

Their mentors, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi agreed to sing for them in spite of low budgets, and Laxmikant–Pyarelal always remained indebted to them.

In fact, all three, Lata, Mohammad Rafi and Asha Bhosle have sung the highest number of songs in their career for Laxmikant–Pyarelal.

They continued to give patronage to Mohammed Rafi, sometimes against filmmakers' wishes.

They had a great rapport with Kishore Kumar as well.

Kishore Kumar sang the most songs (402) for L-P among all male singers, followed by Rafi (about 388 songs).

Laxmikant–Pyarelal hit the big time with Rajshri Productions' 1964 film Dosti.

The film had two newcomer heroes who never became popular, and the film was a success due to its music.

Songs like "Chahoonga Main Tujhe Shaam Savere" and "Rahi Manwa" became very popular.

At that time, many used to think that there was a single person by the name of Laxmikant Pyarelal.

Laxmikant–Pyarelal won their first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for the movie, ahead of stalwarts like Shankar–Jaikishan (for Sangam) and Madan Mohan (for Woh Kaun Thi?).

Then came Lootera, a superhit musical non-star cast film, which is remembered only because of Lata Manageshkar's superhit songs with Laxmikant–Pyarelal.

In 1967, L-P consolidated their position in the Hindi film industry with a series of hits, one after another.