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

Music Directors

KC Dey: The divine singer with inner vision

January 11, 2014

When I wrote on KC Dey’s songs in Devdas (1935), it just gave a glimpse to the readers of how great a singer he was if he could be so moving in the songs which are relatively unknown. Long before that post, I had planned to present my top favourite songs of KC Dey which […]

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Anil Biswas: The Maestro and My Father

January 1, 2014

SoY heralds 2014 as the Year of Anil Biswas with guest article by Shikha Biswas Vohra (Anil Biswas is described as the ‘Bhishm Pitamah’ of Hindi film music, though he used to describe RC Boral as the Father, and himself, somewhat jocularly, as the Uncle (Chacha) of film music. Yet, did he get his due, […]

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Best songs of 1953: Final Wrap Up 4

Shankar Jaikishan_C Ramchandra_Ghulam Mohammad_Anil Biswas_Salil Chaudhary

December 21, 2013

The Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director goes to? Canasya asked in one of the posts in this series, what was the avowed objective of these posts? Jignesh mentioned that SoY Awards have surpassed the fame of Filmfare Awards (I like that ). Filmfare is indeed a reference point, because this series […]

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Sudha Malhotra: The last of the niche singers of the Golden Era

November 30, 2013

Wishing her a very happy 77th birth anniversary A female playback singer in the 1950s and 60s, if she did not bear the name Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhosle, was in a very unenviable position. She knew she had to remain consigned to the outer orbit. The world of male playback singers was a complete […]

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The ultimate SD Burman: His pure Bengali songs

November 10, 2013

In the radio era, when the faintest strains of Sun mere bandhu re or O re majhi mere sajan hain us paar fell into my ears from a distant radio, I would be inexorably drawn towards it, as if pulled by a magnet. SD Burman’s either of these two songs would tower over twenty other […]

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Remembering SD Burman’s Manna Dey

October 31, 2013

Mera sab kuchh mere geet re sang Manna Dey for SD Burman in Zindagi Zindagi. In a sad coincidence, in the midst of my SD Burman series, Manna Dey passed away exactly a week ago at the age of 94 (b. 1 May 1919, d. 24 Oct 2013). Today happens to be SD Burman’s death […]

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SD Burman’s Bengali songs and their Hindi versions

October 22, 2013

Multiple Version Songs (14) With this post my SD Burman journey is intersecting Ashok Vaishnavji’s mega-project on multiple version songs. My journey has taken many interesting turns. I started with the idea of doing a post on my top ten favourite songs of SD Burman, which would have included his film as well non-film Hindi […]

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Kishore Kumar’s best songs by SD Burman

October 13, 2013

It is widely reported that SD Burman had a special fondness for Kishore Kumar. In my earlier posts some statistics has also been discussed regarding SD Burman’s number of songs with different singers. Kishore Kumar has more than any other male singer – beating his nearest rival Rafi by 53 solos to 46 (115 to […]

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Lata Mangeshkar’s best songs by SD Burman

September 28, 2013

Wishing Lata Mangeshkar Happy 84th Birthday The most discussed aspect about SD Burman-Lata Mangeshkar combination is their break up for about five years, 1958-62, rather than their music. In that, he is among a long line of film and music personalities with whom she had one of her famous run-ins. But there is a vital […]

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Asha Bhosle’s best songs by SD Burman

September 8, 2013

Greeting her Happy Birthday on her 80th Anniversary Two music directors – OP Nayyar and RD Burman – are credited with the making of Asha Bhosle. Since everyone says this, I am not going to question it, but my own preference is different. RD Burman-Asha Bhosle is essentially a post-69 phenomenon, when music was RD […]

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