If there is one publicist who has brought a striking change to the music PR segment in India, it is Dale Bhagwagar.
The PR expert, popularly known as Bollywood’s only PR guru, practically invented the music PR segment in the film industry in the late 90s, when there were no music PR agencies in India. In those days, most publicists were busy focusing on film PR, television PR and celebrity PR.
At this time, Dale decided to take up the PR work of music celebrities too, and ended up handling some of the top names in the Indian music industry.
His PR clients have included names such as Bhajan Samrat Anup Jalota, Ghazal King Pankaj Udhas, Santoor Maestro Rahul Sharma, Bhangra King Daler Mehndi, Ghazal Queen Penaz Masani, Melody Kings Nadeem-Shravan, princess of pop Anaida, Indi-pop rap star Style Bhai and the PR for the musical blockbuster Rock On!!
Over the years, he has also managed the publicity in news media for many music companies, singers, music albums, movies, music videos, music composers, songs and singles, for which he has publicized the music of top names such as Aadesh Shrivastava, Amit Trivedi, Anand Raj Anand, Anu Malik, Ashutosh Pathak-Dhruv Ghanekar, Babbu Maan, Bappi Lahiri, BC Smith, Brooklyn Shanti, Dr Zeus, Gurdas Maan, Hans Raj Hans, Himesh Reshammiya, Ila Arun, Ismail Darbar, Jagjit Singh, Jatin-Lalit, Jazzy B, John Stewart, Karthik Raja, Nadeem-Shravan, Nikhil Vinay, Nitin Raikwar, Rajesh Roshan, Ranjit Barot, Sandeep Chowta, Sanjeev Darshan, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Shantanu Moitra, Sukhwinder Singh, Talvin Singh, Tarali Sharma, Uttam Singh, Viju Shah, Vipin Mishra, Vishal-Shekhar and last but not the least, even Malika-e-Tarannum Noor Jehan, as well as the legendary music composer Naushad, who has been conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and the Padma Bhushan.
Dale has also handled the PR for the music company Tips Industries Limited, musical serials like Deewane To Deewane Hai (Zee TV) and Geet Gaataa Chul (Zee TV), Shilpa Shetty’s international musical Miss Bollywood, the US-based philanthropy musical group Flute Theory, SS Ballet Academy, as well as book PR for renowned journalist-cum-author Chaitanya Padukone’s book RD Burmania: Pancha Memoirs.
It is not that Dale has not focused on publicizing Bollywood actors, movies or film music like his contemporaries. He has handled the media for some of the biggest names including Hrithik Roshan, Shilpa Shetty and Priyanka Chopra, and PR for movies such as the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Don, Farhan Akhtar-starrer Rock On and post-release PR for the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Koi… Mil Gaya.
However, his contribution to the music PR segment has reverberated across the music industry and stands strong for freshers in the PR industry to build on.
Dale still rules the roost in the music PR segment. Hopefully, sooner or later the industry will see new PR specializing in music publicity too.