Best songs of 1945: Wrap Up 4

And the Award for the Best Music Director of 1945 goes to? And wishing everyone Merry Christmas

Coming to the final Wrap Up 4, i.e the Best Music Director of 1945 is akin to the end of a Season of a web-series. For those who have not been with SOY since the beginning of the series, a refresher of how it all started will be in order. Long back then-active readers AM and KR Vaishampayan suggested that I do a yearwise survey of the music of pre-Filmfare Awards years 1953-45, in reverse order, and place it for in-depth analysis, comments and suggestions by the readers. AM and KRV have gone off the radar since, but off and on I get mails from KRV about his welfare and that he has been busy in his personal matters.

Filmfare Awards selection calendar was not coterminous with the calendar year in which the films were made, because the cut-off date for nomination was before the end of the year and due to other administrative procedures. For example, the first Filmfare Award for the Best Music was given to Naushad in 1954 for Baiju Bawara (1952). Two movies made in 1954 – Taxi Driver (S D Burman) and Nagin (Hemant Kumar) – got the Awards for the Best Music Director in 1955 and 1956 respectively. Thus, there are gaps in 1955 and 1953, hence you see these years covered in my yearwise reviews.

The template for these reviews evolved as I went along. Most basic features have remained intact: An overview post with a list of ‘Memorable Songs’, some information on the debut, fact file and trivia of the year, separate of Wrap Ups for the Best Male Solos, Best Female Solos, Best Duets, and the Final Wrap Up for the Best Music Director. In the first two reviews, i.e. for 1955 and 1953, Lata Mangeshkar was all over, and I had to include some ‘other singers’ as Affirmative Action. This was not satisfactory and did not do justice to either. Therefore, for 1951, 1950 and 1949, I split the female solos in two parts: best solos of Lata Mangeshkar, and best solos of ‘other’ female singers. 1948 onwards till 1945 this need was no longer there. In other words, 1949 onwards is the era of Lata Mangeshkar’s overwhelming supremacy, she is the undisputed No.1 female playback singer, and my guess is if I continue the series 1956 onwards, Lata Mangeshkar will be the Pole Star for many years. This was a never-before phenomenon, nor is it likely to recur again.

I made another little modification in the Final Wrap Up. In the first two years, i.e. 1955 and 1953, a few music directors conspicuously dominated the popularity and high quality. So the final selection was on the basis of qualitative examination of 7 and 5 music directors respectively. From 1951-45 I started the practice of preparing a consolidated table of different ‘Bests’ and examine which music directors composed those 30 (or 40 in separate Lata Mangeshkar-category years, 1951-49) ‘Best’ songs of the year. Therefore, you find more music directors mentioned in the Final Wrap Up.

With this background introduction let us now come back to discussing the Best Music Director of the year. Let me put the best ten male solos, female solos and duets (as discussed in the respective Wrap Ups) in a consolidated table as under:

Consolidated list of the Best Male Solos, Female Solos and Duets of 1945

We can now present the same table music director-wise as follows:

Music directors of 1945 having most number of Memorable Songs

The most obvious inference from this table is that there was no runaway winner unlike 1946 and later years which were dominated by colossus like Naushad, C Ramchandra, and later Shankar-Jaikishan and S D Burman. If there is no single towering winner, just going by numerical leads may lead to counter-intuitive, and at times distorted results.

Arunkumar Deshmukh’s choice for the best music director is Shyam Sundar for Village Girl. It had the iconic Noorjehan song Baithi hun teri yaad ka lekar ke sahara (the Best Female Solo of the year) and some other very good songs. Anup’s choice is identical. Canasya also endorses this choice. Neeruahaf chooses Anil Biswas as the best music director, obviously for Pahli Nazar which had the iconic Mukesh song Dil jalta hai to jalne de (the Best Male Solo of the year).

Raunak does a sophisticated analysis. According to him the top 5 albums of the year are:
1.    Hamrahi (R C Boral) – “For the sheer variety of songs cutting across different genres like ghazals, Western style songs, romantic songs, marching song, Rabindrasangeet etc.”
2.    Pahli Nazar (Anil Biswas)
3.    Badi Ma (K Datta)
4.    Village Girl (Shyam Sundar)
5.    Moorti (Bulo C Rani)

He chooses Bulo C Rani as the Composer of the Year who “across 3 albums in Moorti, Preet and Chaand Chakor” gave at least a dozen memorable songs. According to him next comes R C Boral for his work in Hamrahi and Waseeyatnama.

I am happy Raunak shares my admiration for Bulo C Rani whom I described as Genius in the Shadow of Giants. Bulo C Rani tops the Table for the year. But going by the popular choice,

The SOY Award for the Best Music Director of 1945 goes to Shyam Sundar. And,

Bulo C Rani is honoured with Special Mention for his music in 1945.

I end the Season 1 of the series of year-wise reviews from 1955 to 1945, wishing everyone Merry Christmas. This year it is not merely a ritual, we need to wish everyone all the time that the Lord keeps us safe and healthy. The pandemic has changed the world in fundamental ways. For the last few weeks we were patting ourselves on our luck that the virus has spared us the second or third wave which has afflicted the US and some other countries. As I write this, there is scary news from the UK and Europe that they are gripped by a new mutant which they find “uncontrollable”.  Now the world is again banning international flights from affected countries. Before I part,  here is a broadsheet of the total number of films produced in the year, the number of films figuring in the MEMORABLE SONGS in the year, and the Best Music Director of the Year during 1955-45 (1952 and 1954 excluded for reasons explained earlier).