In the past year, my awareness of bhangra has expanded from the modern musical scene to the backdrop tunes of yesteryear. And one of the lodestones of the bhangra industry (based in the British cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and London) is the group Heera. For those who don't know about Heera, you should know that they were one of the earliest bhangra bands to form, around the time of Alaap and Apna Sangeet, who formed in the late 1970s, and made a massive name for themselves in India and abroad.
I got introduced to Heera in early 2011 while listening to a weekend bhangra show on the radio. One of the listeners called in to complain good-naturedly to the DJ that they didn't play any old school bhangra anymore, that he played only the new stuff ("old school" in bhangra terms seems to refer to anything made before the turn of the millenium). After mentioning this to everybody, the DJ put on a song by Heera, Dowain Jaaniya, and suddenly I was surrounded by the sounds of a tune redolent of 80s-style pop music, sung in Panjabi . I had never heard any oldie bhangra tunes, much less heard of any group other than Alaap, and while I sat there in the wake of a blast from the past, I was thinking, what did the DJ say the name of this group was? At the end of the song he mentioned it again, and at the end of the show I was scouring the Internet for who Heera was. I found some of their recordings, some of their MTV-inspired music videos, and opened myself up to the world of old bhangra.
Heera is notable for their myriad musical experiments. The Panjabi tunes they've done have flirted with practically every genre while keeping their distinctive desi sound. Latino piano and conga influences resound in the classic Maar Charappa and in Naach Patalo, while techno swerves verve around with dholki bravado and keyboard in Sharaabi Teri Akhiyaan Ne. And don't forget the disco-sounds of Dowain Jaaniya. Of course they like to do more traditional bhangra (without the dhol, unlike Apna Sangeet), as in Milna De Naal Aaye Mitro, but despite this they should be counted as innovators, as the diamonds of the era.
