Folk music is root of mainstream music: Kailash Kher

Kolkata: Sufi music icon Kailash Kher says that folk music, which preceded mainstream music, has its place secured in the annals of music and nobody can undermine its importance.

"The Bollywood film music cuisine is largely made up of folk song recipes," Kailash, who is also a composer, he said. He reminded the young generation that folk culture and folk music were the roots from which branches of different musical genres have spread out. Kailash, who started his playback singing with the film `Andaaz` preceded by singing in ad jingles, claimed that live music and performance were slowly on their way out. Paying tributes to Indian musicians, Kailash said that from Bismillah Khan to Pt Hariprasad Churasia, musicians of India had shunned all material comfort for the cause of music. "If your devotion is pure, you need not require any synthetic orchestration as proved by our folk singers, predecessors years back. Even without instrumentation you can create magic," Kailash said. Paying tribute to Kolkata, he said, "I think the highest number of performing artistes in different genres are from Kolkata and Bengal. Kolkata is a city of art, it is a place of literature and craft with lots of talented people residing there who practise and dream art." Kailash, who plans to perform with his sufi Kailasha band with Kolkata folk artistes in the next few months, is all praise for singers like Parbati Baul. Kailash hopes to team up with Parbati Baul and other folk singers to perform baul and other kinds of folk songs fused with sufi music.