India’s First Ever Recorded Song, Have a Look.

India’s first ever recorded song |

Raga – Jogia | Gauhar Jaan | 1902

Click the image to listen to the song.

India’s first recording sessions included Gauhar Jaan, singing a khayal in Raag Jogiya, recorded by Fred Gaisberg of the Gramophone Company. The sessions began on 8 November 1902. Over the course of six weeks, more than 500 matrices were recorded by local artists. The records were manufactured in Germany and shipped to India in April 1903. They proved a great success in popularising the gramophone in India, where locals had no interest or appreciation for Western music. The recording was done in a makeshift recording studio in two large rooms of a hotel in Kolkata. By 1903, her records started appearing in Indian markets and were in great demand.

Gauhar Jaan the Thumri Queen of Indian Classical music was the first one to record an album with Saregama the erstwhile HMV (His Masters Voice). She has learned pure and lights classical Hindustani vocal music from many notable maestros like Kale Khan, Ustad Vazir Khan, and Ustad Ali Baksh and Kathak from legendary Brindadin Maharaj, etc. She recorded more than 600 records from 1902 to 1920, in more than ten languages in her lifetime and popularised Hindustani Classical with her thumri, dadra, kajri, chaiti, bhajan, Tarana. Here’s a jukebox of some of her choicest works of these forms that could straight away go into any collectors priceless song collection.

Film Title: The Best Indian Classical Music For Portal

Track Title: Raga – Jogia (Gauhar Jan)

Original Artist: Gauhar Jaan

Music Director: Traditional