Just came to know from Shubha Mudgal's column in Mint that Mehmood Dholpuri, one of the well known harmonium players, passed away on May 25th. Even though I am an avid follower of developments on the Indian music scene, this news was hardly reported by the media - sad that such a great musician passed away relatively unnoticed.
Dholpuri initially played the Sarangi - and then later moved on to playing the harmonium. As a harmonium player he was synonymous with Delhi - just like Appasaheb Jalgaonkar was synonymous with Pune. Any vocalist performing in Delhi would first check Dholpuriji's availability.
Dholpuri passed away at the relatively young age of 58. This is a bit tragic as it takes musicians decades and decades of thankless perseverance before they attain recognition : even a great like Bhimsen Joshi started getting recognition only when he was well into his sixties. So Dholpuri passed away before the music world could give him his due.
Some of Dholpuri's performances can be seen here on Youtube. There is also a very nice interview carried out with him a few years ago which gives an insight into his life and struggle for recognition - this can be viewed here.
Dholpuri initially played the Sarangi - and then later moved on to playing the harmonium. As a harmonium player he was synonymous with Delhi - just like Appasaheb Jalgaonkar was synonymous with Pune. Any vocalist performing in Delhi would first check Dholpuriji's availability.
Dholpuri passed away at the relatively young age of 58. This is a bit tragic as it takes musicians decades and decades of thankless perseverance before they attain recognition : even a great like Bhimsen Joshi started getting recognition only when he was well into his sixties. So Dholpuri passed away before the music world could give him his due.
Some of Dholpuri's performances can be seen here on Youtube. There is also a very nice interview carried out with him a few years ago which gives an insight into his life and struggle for recognition - this can be viewed here.
2 comments:
Thank you vandram for the sad news and info such as links on such a great musician. Thank you very much. I am saddened at his premature passing away and sincerely hope that the talent and knowledge that he would have accumulated over the years would have been passed on to his disciples. May the great Dholpuri's talent remain and continue to be heard and enjoyed.
Thank you. The silver lining is that his elder son is a fast upcoming sarangi player, and his younger son is following in his father's footsteps and is training to be a harmonist.
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