Chandu The Magician And The Music Of Korla Pandit

Thanks to our dedicated member Cassie I've now added the correct episode 41 of Chandu the Magician to complete the 68 part first series.

If you are anything like me you will have been hypnotized by the advertising in Chandu and be on the look out for White King Soap. Well, I'm sad to say that you won't find any down at Wal-Mart or Walgreens, but here's a photograph of a White King crate!

Whilst on the subject of Chandu I had to relay this information to you. It was kindly sent in by a member who provided me with lots of interesting information about Korla Pandit - the man behind the Chandu soundtrack.

Korla Pandit, who provided all the music for the Chandu series, lived his life as a bogus Hindu entertainer. He was to the Indian what Al Jolson was to the African-American, but unlike Jolson he kept the facade up twenty-four hours a day.

Pandit was born in Columbia, Missouri on September 16, 1921. His real name was John Roland Redd. The story he told about his parentage, about how he was born in India, that his father had sent him to England and later to America to be educated was completely bogus. His father (Ernest Redd) was pastor of the Second Baptist Church, the largest black church in Columbia.
 
What was amazing about Pandit's impostor act was that he was never caught out. When he died, in a hospital room in Sonoma County in October 1998, his secret remained intact. Not only did his fans never know the truth of his African American origin, but he never told his two sons.

Korla Pandit cast a spell on his followers, then left it behind for his wife and two children and the rest of us to understand. This goes a long way to explaining how a man of his background could wind up hosting his own television show in the 1950's "Adventures in Music" where, while he played some piece of exotica like "Jalousie" on the Wurlitzer, his face, topped by a white turban and oval jewel - looking like Orphan Annie's Indian helper-filled the screen, surrounded by a gauzy haze. His soulful gaze is said to have drawn housewives into rapturous fantasies. How else could so talented a man have been able to get rooms at the best hotels while performers like Sammy Davis Jr, and Lena Horne, and Ella Fitzgerald could entertain at these places but not dine at these places?

His last appearance on film, still playing the exotic music he helped make famous, was in Tim Burton's film Ed Wood (1994) where he provided the music for Johnny Depp's Dance of the Seven Veils scene.

He died on October 2, 1998 in Santa Rosa, California and with him went one of the great musicians of the last century and one of the cleverest imposters to have ever lived.

H G Wells once said "If you don't like your life you can change it." Korla Pandit proved he was absolutely right.

Happy listening my friends,