Biddu

Biddu Appaiah (born 8 February 1944) is a British-Indian singer-songwriter, composer, and music producer who composed and produced many worldwide hit records during a career spanning five decades.

Considered one of the pioneers of disco, Euro disco, and Indian pop, he has sold millions of records worldwide, and has received an Ivor Novello award for his work.

He has been ranked at number 34 on NME's "The 50 Greatest Producers Ever" list.

Biddu was born in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

He began his music career in the 1960s, singing as part of a music band in India before moving to England where he would start his career as a producer.

In the 1960s, as a youth, he developed a liking for the then new pop and rock music, as he said in a media interview, listening to pop hits played on the shortwave radio band of Radio Ceylon of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), which was then popular throughout Asia.

He learnt to play the guitar and in his late teens and early twenties he frequented the clubs and bars of Bangalore, and soon started a music band called 'Trojans' with a few friends, including Ken Gnanakan, who later went on to start an NGO called "ACTS".

The band was India's first English-speaking band, and found success playing cover versions of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Trini Lopez and hits of other Western stars of the day, in the clubs of Bangalore and also other Indian cities, such as Calcutta and Bombay.

The band, however, split since Ken Gnanakan wanted to pursue higher studies, leaving Biddu alone as the sole member of the band.

He played under the name 'Lone Trojan' and was popular as an act at a night club called "Venice" in Bombay.

Biddu held an interest for bigger things in popular music, and in 1967 left for England.

He traveled through the Middle East, earning money by singing catchy numbers and playing the guitar.

Biddu arrived in England at the age of 23, a few months after leaving India.

About his arrival in England, he said in an interview to the BBC: "I didn't really know too much about England or anything – I'd just come here on the chance of meeting the Beatles and doing some music. Everything that I did had this danceable flavour".

Within a few months of his arrival, he had met The Beatles, but expressed disappointment that "Lennon was dressed so badly."

In England, he supported himself doing odd jobs and also working as a chef in the American Embassy.

His attempts at becoming a singer in England were unsuccessful and, according to Biddu, "as an Indian in those days they were happier to hire me as an accountant than as a singer".

He eventually gave up on his ambition to become a singer and instead decided to produce his own records rather than working for a record company.

He saved a few pounds before he decided to rent studio time and record several singles, none of which received any airplay from UK radio stations.

He eventually found some success producing a hit song for Japanese band The Tigers in 1969, scoring the soundtrack for 1972 British film Embassy, and producing several early disco songs that would find a niche audience in British northern soul clubs during the early 1970s.

Biddu's first major success was in 1969, when he produced the song "Smile for Me", performed by The Tigers, who were Japan's most famous band at the time, and written by Barry and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees.

Since the band did not speak English, Biddu had to show them how to sing the English lyrics phonetically.

Following its release that year, the song topped the chart in Japan.

His success Abroad in Japan would later pave the way for his later success back in Britain.

Biddu also experimented with electronic disco and Hi-NRG music from the mid-1970s, and influenced British new wave bands such as The Buggles, founded by two of his former session musicians Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes.

During the early 1970s, Biddu produced several early disco songs that, despite receiving no airplay on radio, began gaining some underground success in UK northern soul clubs, in places like Wigan and Blackpool, which were more receptive to Biddu's early disco sounds due to northern soul being a forerunner to disco.

The Biddu sound incorporated "solid playing by a hard rhythm section and fast swirling Northern soul–style melodies" and resembled the disco sound that had appeared independently in New York at around the same time.

In 1971, he wrote the title track for the Jack Wild album Everything's Coming Up Roses, which was released as a single backed with "Bring Yourself Back to Me", written by Don Gould and Lynsey de Paul.

The single earned positive reviews, with Billboard awarding it Special Merit Spotlight status and it reached number 107 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Chart.

In 1972, Biddu scored music for the UK spy thriller Embassy.

His international breakthrough came in 1974 with "Kung Fu Fighting" performed by Carl Douglas; the song became one of the best-selling singles of all time with eleven million records sold, helped popularise disco music, was the first worldwide disco hit from Britain and Europe, and established Biddu as one of the most prolific dance music producers from outside the United States at the time.

He soon began producing his own instrumental albums under the name Biddu Orchestra, which started an orchestral disco trend in Britain and Europe with 1975 hits "Summer of '42" and "Blue Eyed Soul"; his solo albums eventually sold 40 million copies worldwide.

He also launched the careers of other British disco stars such as Tina Charles, helping her sell 36 million records within a few years, and Jimmy James; scored soundtracks for several British films such as The Stud (1978); and produced a hit song for the French singer Claude François.

Following the decline of disco in the Western world, he later found success in Asia during the 1980s, where he launched the careers of the late Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan and her brother Zoheb; he produced their debut album Disco Deewane, which charted in fourteen countries and became the best-selling Asian pop album up until that time, and helped the duo eventually sell 60 million records worldwide.

During that decade, he also produced several hit Bollywood soundtracks for films such as Qurbani (1980) as well as several hit songs for Japanese pop idol Akina Nakamori and Chinese pop singer Samantha Lam (林志美).

In the 1990s, he popularised Indian pop with the hit album Made in India (1995), which became the best-selling pop album in India and launched the career of Alisha Chinai, after which he would launch the careers of several more Indian pop acts such as Shaan and his sister Sagarika as well as Sonu Nigam and K.S. Chithra.

In the 2000s, Biddu has been active in the Western and Indian music scenes producing albums which are more spiritual and Eastern-oriented.

He rearranged a classical hit for Luke Kenny's film, Rise of the Zombie.

Biddu's family originally hailed from Kodagu in the Karnataka state of India, but he was born and grew up in the city of Bangalore, where he attended the Bishop Cotton Boys' School.

He carries the clan name of Chendrimada.