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Ram Gharib Chaube was probably born in the late 1850s into the traditional learned Chaube family. He graduated from the Presidency College, Calcutta, and was learned in both Indian tradition and the British colonial system of education, being fluent in dialects of Awadhi and Bhojpuri, as well as Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit and English. He became Mirzapur's distirct collector of revenues and whilst there met William Crooke, who was keen to document Indian folklore. Impressed with Chaube's abilities, Crooke asked that Chaube help in his work. Chaube probably continued to work with Crooke until Crooke's departure for England in 1896. The material in these papers, therefore most likely dates from this time. Crooke continued to correspond with Chaube after his return to England. However he does not seem to have acknowledged Chaube's contribution to his work.

After Crooke's departure Chaube also worked for V.A. Smith, and G.A. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India. However he constantly struggled to earn enough money and satisfy his academic interests. He died in 1914 in Gopalpur.

The life of Crooke and Rame Gharib Chaube has been well documented in In Quest of Indian Folktales: Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube and William Crooke by Sadhana Naithani (Indian University Press, 2006) from which these biographical details have been obtained.

Raymond Head was born in London in 1948. He studied piano with Alice Goossens before attending Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College, Exmouth, Devon, from 1967 to 1970. He studied composition privately with Roger Smalley and Edwin Roxburgh and visited Darmstadt, Germany, for the Ferienkurse für Musik in 1968. After teaching at Bottisham Village College, Cambridge, and subsequently in Devon he went to Rome in 1976 and taught at St George's School, Rome, and was a repetiteur for Hans Werner Henze's first Cantiere at Montepulciano, Tuscany.

Raymond Head began an investigation into Indian influences on Western culture, a long time interest. This led to post-graduate work at the Royal College of Art, London, travel in the USA on a British Academy scholarship and a short-stay Yale Fellowship. In 1986 he published a book The Indian Style (Allen & Unwin, London, University of Chicago Press, 1986) which was followed in 1991 by A Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Royal Asiatic Society, London. He was invited to give the Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, London, in 1987. He also gave concerts and broadcasts for the BBC in London (during the 1982 Indian Festival, London), Turin, and for the National Trust on the theme of Indian influences on western music.

Head is a Gustav Holst scholar and a musical adviser to the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He received a Holst Foundation Award 1984 to pursue original work on Holst and was a Trustee of the Holst Birthplace Museum from 2003 to 2006. On 4th April 2008 Raymond's Fanfare for Gustav Holst was played at the unveiling of Holst's Statue in Cheltenham.

For a full biography see Raymond Head's website (https://raymondhead.com/).

Raymond Head passed away on 1 September 2025, aged 77.