I turned music producer after close to four decades of live performance. Five star hotel residencies, concerts, music festivals, international tours and just about every genre of music contributed to my continuously updated music vocabulary. Turning music producer was the most natural development in my career. Producing other artiste's music gives me greater joy than producing my own. I set up a recording studio in Goa and went about doing just that and in a span of three years I produced over eighty originals many of which topped international internet charts. The world was ready for original western music from India but India wasn't. Right through my career I only encountered record labels who knew exactly what every Indian wanted and that was songs to be sung in Hindi. It was just about the same with radio stations. Granted, we live in a country ruled by bollywood and Hindi is a major language. English speaking people in India may be a minority but then again when we talk even a tiny percentage of India, we are talking the population of an entire European country. Indigo 91.9 FM is probably the only radio station in the country to see this perspective taking on the might of bollywood by broadcasting only international music in India. Most of the songs I have been producing has been in English and Indigo 91.9 was my only hope to have my music broadcast locally. It took me a long time to convince the heads that western music being produced in India easily matches and in many cases even outclasses international releases. I had documented my tracks that topped thousands of worldwide entries on internet charts and this finally convinced them to give my music a shot. The 29th of July 2012 will go down as a historical day for local talent in Goa when 'Indigo Goa Grooves' went on air in a one year long weekly broadcast. In just three months the slickly produced two hour show grew into the most popular shows on air in Goa with people actually staying tuned right through the two hour broadcast that featured a different local artiste as a guest every week. It has been one exciting journey and the curtains finally comes down on yet another phase in my career. The final broadcast of Indigo Goa Grooves goes on air in Goa on the 21st of July featuring some of my favourite excerpts from past shows.
Colin D'Cruz www.jazzyatra.com
