Biddu Appaiah was born on 8 February 1945 and is a British-Indian singer-songwriter, composer, and music producer who composed and produced many worldwide hit records during a career spanning five decades.
34 Facts About Biddu
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Biddu has been ranked at number 34 on NMEs "The 50 Greatest Producers Ever" list.
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Biddu began his music career in the 1960s, by singing as part of a music band in India before moving to England where he would start his career as a producer.
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Biddu 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.
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Biddu 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.
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Biddu 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 ; and produced a hit song for the French singer Claude Francois.
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Biddu 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.
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Biddu rearranged a classical hit for Luke Kenny's film, Rise of the Zombie.
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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.
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Biddu 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".
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Biddu played under the name 'Lone Trojan' and was popular as an act at a night club called "Venice" in Bombay.
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Biddu held an interest for bigger things in popular music, and in 1967 left for England.
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Biddu traveled through the Middle East, earning money by singing catchy numbers and playing the guitar.
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Biddu arrived in England at the age of 23, a few months after leaving India.
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Biddu 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.
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Biddu 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.
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Since the band did not speak English, Biddu had to show them how to sing the English lyrics phonetically.
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In 1972, Biddu scored music for the UK spy thriller Embassy.
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Shortly after, Biddu produced Carl Douglas' debut album Kung Fu Fighting and Other Great Love Songs, which produced another major hit, "Dance The Kung Fu".
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Biddu soon established himself as one of the key figures in Britain's soul and disco scenes during the 1970s, working with a variety of British soul and disco artists, including Tina Charles, The Outriders, and Jimmy James.
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Biddu began experimenting with high-tempo Hi-NRG disco music, with early examples including some of the songs in his 1976 Tina Charles albums I Love to Love and Dance Little Lady, as well as his disco singles such as "Voodoo Man" which had a tempo of 130 beats per minute.
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Biddu's backing tracks had a strong influence on the British new wave band The Buggles, founded by two of Biddu's former session musicians, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, who are most famous for writing the hit song "Video Killed the Radio Star" in 1979.
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In early 1978, Biddu's own "Journey to the Moon" was a hit, peaking at No 41 in the UK.
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Biddu produced the soundtrack for its sequel, The Bitch, in 1979.
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Biddu worked with various musicians including some players from Manchester and Liverpool who had worked on sessions with Tina Charles until the late 1970s, after which disco music slowly began to wane as funk, new wave and electronic music began taking centre-stage in Western popular music, taking with it Biddu's established place in the Western music scene, despite his early attempts at producing electronic synthpop music, such as his 1980 song "Small Talk" for Amy.
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Biddu initially was not interested in composing a Hindi film song, but later took it up as he would say years later, "I thought it would keep my mum happy ".
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Biddu later signed her up for the song he was composing for Qurbani.
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Biddu modeled them on the then-popular American brother-sister duo, The Carpenters.
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Biddu composed a few catchy numbers for Nazia and Zoheb for the album Disco Deewane.
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Biddu produced several more hit songs for Akina Nakamori, including the 1987 songs "The Look That Kills" and "BLONDE", which became chart-topping hits in Japan.
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In 1996, Biddu made a brother-sister duo popular again with Shaan and Sagarika Mukherjee, producing the Naujawan album.
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Biddu's own 1999 album, Eastern Journey, was an experiment which blended Indian pop with Western flair and strong, jazz elements.
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Biddu started a publishing house called SueBiddu Music, which administers music for artists, wrote an autobiography called Made in India at the insistence of his wife, and has returned to live performances as a singer.
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In 2010, Biddu won an "Outstanding Achievement" award at the UK Asian Music Awards, and he was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the JD Rock Awards in India that same year.