2015

Naushad’s Priceless Moment: ‘Anmol Ghadi’

Anmol Ghadi December 25, 2015

Wishing Merry Christmas to all with a tribute to Naushad, Rafi and Noorjehan I heralded 2015 with Naushad’s Crown Jewel, Rattan (1944), and decided to celebrate the year as The Year of Naushad. I cannot think of a better way to conclude the year than to remember his next Priceless Moment in his career, Anmol […]

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C Ramchandra as Chitalkar

C Ramchandra December 14, 2015

In the Naushad-C Ramchandra duel I have presented through the year, both seem to be evenly matched so far in spite of my known partiality towards Naushad. But as Chitalkar, the singer, CR has no competition from Naushad. As the year draws to a close, continuing the series on the Year of Naushad (with C Ramchandra in […]

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Naushad’s gems before ‘Rattan’ (1944)

Naushad December 3, 2015

It is well known that Naushad zoomed off in an orbit of his own with Rattan (1944). He had debuted four years earlier as independent music director with Prem Nagar (1940). To be exact, his first recorded song was Bata do koi kaun gali more Shyam in the voice of Leela Chitnis for Kanchan (1941), […]

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Best songs of 1950: Final Wrap Up 5

Top music directors of 1949 November 22, 2015

The SoY Award for the Best Music Director goes to? This year’s detailed review had more songs (152) than in any preceding year, and I had hoped that this would cover most of the noteworthy songs. Nevertheless, the readers added a large number of songs in the comments. This shows that there are a number […]

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Best songs of 1950: Wrap Up 4

1950 films November 11, 2015

Songs of Yore Award for the Best Duet goes to? (Wishing Happy Diwali to everyone) Hans recently commented in some other context that duets generally create less impact than solos. This is certainly true of tennis where the doubles players are not counted in the same league as Federers and Djokovics. In the olden days before the open […]

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Ten best songs (solos) composed by SD Burman

SD Burman October 31, 2015

A tribute to SD Burman on his 40th death anniversary (1 October 1906-31 October 1975) Music evokes strong emotions. Therefore, it is natural that SoY has seen serious difference of views on songs, singers, music directors and a whole host of related issues. But none has been as sharp as mine with Dinesh’s. It is […]

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Best songs of 1950: Wrap Up 3

Lata |Mangeshkar October 19, 2015

(After the overview post on the Best songs of 1950, I have written Wrap Up 1 on the best male solos, and Wrap Up 2 on the best female solos by ‘other’ singers.  Continuing the series, here is the third Wrap Up on the best songs of Lata Mangeshkar. – AK) Songs of Yore Award for the Best Female […]

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First male dancer of Hindi films: Mumtaz Ali

Mumtaz Ali October 9, 2015

I came to Mumtaz Ali in a very roundabout way. Before the Internet era I was only aware of his name as the father of Mehmood and Minoo Mumtaz etc. Internet made me aware that he was also into films, with the Bombay Talkies. Then a rare chance occurrence gave me a day out with […]

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The Great Mughal and The Empress of playback singing

Naushad and Lata Mangeshkar September 28, 2015

Wishing Lata Mangeshkar a very happy 86th birth anniversary (b. 28 September 1929) with her songs for Naushad A blog would start losing its appeal if it became too predictable. Today is one such day when everyone is going to exclaim, ‘’I knew it!’ However, there is no way I can avoid it. There are […]

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Asha Bhosle with reluctant Naushad and C Ramchandra: Part 2 (duets)

Asha Bhosle with C Ramchandra and Naushad September 18, 2015

I could not have imagined until sometime back that I would be writing two posts back to back on Asha Bhosle. But I have since become conscious of a strong Asha Bhosle Fan Club on SoY. In my last post on her songs with Naushad and C Ramchandra, we saw that even though they might […]

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