A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.

Guest Authors

Suraiya: The Last Nightingale of Bollywood

June 15, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (Suraiya was literally as sweet as a nightingale. I have covered her in some detail. But with his amazing enthusiasm for research, DP Rangan was not deterred in finding enough interesting material and uncovered songs on her. I thank Mr Rangan for this nice article and join him in paying […]

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Talat Mahmood: A Mesmeriser

May 9, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan as a tribute to Talat Mahmood on his 20th death anniversary (24 February 1924 – 9 May 1998) (We know all the famous songs of Talat Mahmood. Most of them are already covered on SoY. But that is not a deterrent to a real Talat-fan like our indefatigable DP Rangan, […]

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Tasveer exhibits of Bollywood

March 22, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (A lesser mortal, when asked to write on songs on ‘tasveer’, would have made some general observations about pictures, and mentioned some songs which contained the word ‘tasveer’. Not DP Rangan, as we know well by now. Mr Rangan takes us to pre-historic days when mankind would have started making […]

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Nuptials in Bollywood

January 14, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (With Makar Sankranti and Pongal, as the month-long ‘inauspicious period’ comes to an end and the wedding season is set to resume with full vigour, our indefatigablete DP Rangan comes up with a very nicely-timed post on nuptial songs from our films. In his characteristic style, Mr Rangan packs in a […]

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OP Nayyar unlike OP Nayyar

December 14, 2017

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar (OP Nayyar lived life king size. Even when he was in financial difficulty in his later years, he was immaculately dressed and had a regal bearing; there was no dent in his famous pride – he refused the Lata Mangeshkar Award for music, which carried a substantial cash award for […]

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Duets of OP Nayyar: Part 2

December 3, 2017

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar (Of the 223 total duets composed by OP Nayyar, the most conspicuous are male-female duets in which the male voice is Rafi and the female voice, either Geeta Dutt or Shamshad Begum or Asha Bhosle. These are 119 in number, and were the subject matter of Ravindra Kelkar’s last post […]

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Duets of OP Nayyar: Part 1

November 23, 2017

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar (SoY readers would recall that Ravindra Kelkar has been making valuable contributions on OP Nayyar through his guest articles and, thus, filling up a gap in SoY. He has contributed three articles so far: ‘Three distinct phases of OP Nayyar’; OP Nayyar-Geeta Dutt: A peerless combination’; and OP Nayyar’s influence […]

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Waterfalls in Bollywood

November 2, 2017

Guest article by DP Rangan (DP Rangan is a man with boundless energy. Even with a late debut on the Songs of Yore, at the rate he is writing he will soon overtake the regular guest writers. After the horse series, he switched to romantic themes of moon and stars. This post on Waterfalls in […]

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OP Nayyar’s influence on other Music Directors

August 31, 2017

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar (OP Nayyar was a craze for some years from the mid-50s. Every music director was imitating his style, composing OP-type songs from time to time. If you thought it was simply a bandwagon effect, our OP Nayyar-expert Ravindra Kelkar unravels several factors that were at play. Some did it voluntarily, […]

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Asymmetric Duets

August 21, 2017

Guest article by Subodh Agrawal (I have often mentioned that duets, though far less in number than solo songs, present a fascinating variety of music. One variety is on account of the lesser known female singers getting a chance to sing with major playback singers like Rafi and Mukesh, and we are richer for that […]

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