Bengali audience can't come out of 70s era music: Manomay

The popularity of numbers sung by legends Hemanta, Sandhya, Manna, Shyamal shows the Bengali audience can never go out of that golden era of 60s-80s, contemporary singer Manomay Bhattacharya says.
"I am ecstatic the way people came to hear my songs, but again the response to the songs of Mannasab, Rafi or Hemanta was more overwhelming," Manomay told PTI over phone on the 17th year of his musical career.
The "Aro Ekta Gaaner Jonnyo" singer, who recalled the audience response to his first solo performance Ekla Manomay 'Shyamsundar' on Friday evening, said the golden era classic genre will always be in the heart of Bengali audience as "Me and other artistes of my generation and every Bengali grew up listening to those numbers."

"However, other genres of Bengali music, in fact all the genres of music, have equal takers -from classical vocal, instrumental to basic popular numbers and film playbacks as well as the oldie goldies which defined one era of Bengal," eminent classical instrumentalist Debajyoti (Tony) Bose said.
The globally known sarodist, who will be shortly leaving for Australia for a musical tour, said the very fact that people are flocking to all concerts and FMs' airing all genres of music, shows even if the sale of CD were on decline, the digital format is there which has emerged as a most popular medium.

"If emotions well up in the human mind, music, in any whichever form, will continue to be the catharsis," Manomay, the recipient of state sponsored singer award two years back, said.