Main artistes ought to be generous in remunerating accompanists. If not, they are in for caustic comments.
Take for instance, the case of this vocalist of great renown, who died in the early 1990s. He had a big fan following and perhaps because of that he believed he was doing accompanists a favour by giving them an opportunity to play with him. Wasn’t this ‘favour’ compensation enough? Ought he also pay them?
Well, accompanists who make a living by their art, were never amused with this line of thinking and naturally, this vocalist-of-great-repute earned himself a bad name among them.
Days passed, until one day…..
This great vocalist had built a house and had invited a whole lot of musicians, to the house warming ceremony. In the post-lunch chit-chat, the vocalist said he was wondering what name he should give the house.
There was one violinist, whom we know after the incident, was an acerbic-tongued orator.
He said: “Why don’t you name this ‘pakka vadya bhavan’?” - implying that the house was built out of moneys pooled by short-changing accompanists!
This is a true story, though I doubt if the violinist made the remark to the vocalist’s face.
Guru Purandara Dasa, who extracted music from the Vedas and brought it to us
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