Sunil Ganguly

Who was Sunil Ganguly?

Sunil Ganguly was an Indian musician who played the Hawaiian electric guitar. He made a number of records of Indian film music on the HMV label, Sagarika Acoustronics and Concorde Records.

Sunil Ganguly was born at Sonamura village in Tripura on 1 January 1940. He re-created a number of popular hit Bollywood songs, from the films of 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, on guitar. He trained under the great Pt. Gyan Prakash Ghosh, also the guru of the renowned vocalist Pt. Ajay Chakrabarty. Ganguly, therefore, had a profound knowledge of North Indian Classical music and had a unique gayaki style with which he played the guitar. He has a number of compositions and dhuns based on various ragas. Some of his remarkable records include 'Ghazal chedi usne', an album of instrumentals of ghazals by prominent singers such as Mehdi Hassan and Jagjit Singh. His recording career spanned more than 40 yrs from 1957, when he cut his first album from HMV. He died in Kolkata on June 14, 1999, after a short illness. He was active in giving music classes at his residence, and in doing recordings, until the last week before his demise.