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

Singers

The Unlucky Genius Ghulam Mohammad’s best songs for Talat Mahmood

February 24, 2016

Ghulam Mohammad was Naushad’s senior in the music industry by several years. He was an established tabla player, earning Rs 60 per month, with Ustad Jhande Khan, when Naushad joined him, in 1937, as a piano player at Rs. 40 per month. Fate catapulted Naushad to commanding heights, making him the greatest Mughal of Movie […]

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Shankar-Jaikishan’s dance songs for Lata Mangeshkar

February 12, 2016

(DP Rangan recently asked me who would be the music director of 2016. Obviously, he presumed there would be one, because I celebrated 2015 as the Year of Naushad (with C Ramchandra in tandem), and the year before that as the Year of Anil Biswas. Concurrently, I also covered SD Burman extensively, but that happened […]

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Best songs of the most unloved singer Mahendra Kapoor

January 9, 2016

A tribute on Mahendra Kapoor’s 82nd birth anniversary (9 January 1934 – 27 December 2008) I have made a number of discoveries during my association with SoY. I mentioned some in my last anniversary post. But the most startling discovery I have not yet mentioned – we are now aware of at least two persons […]

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Best songs of 1950: Wrap Up 3

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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The Great Mughal and The Empress of playback singing

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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Asha Bhosle with reluctant Naushad and C Ramchandra: Part 1 (solos)

September 8, 2015

Greeting her happy birthday on her 82st birth anniversary (b. 8 September 1933) Asha Bhosle’s position in the early 1950s was very unenviable. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had debuted as a playback singer (Aap Ki Sewa Mein; 1947) only a year before her (Chunariya; 1948), but the former stormed the music scene in 1949 […]

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C Ramchandra-Naushad comparison and contrast with Rafi

July 31, 2015

A tribute to Rafi on his 35th death anniversary It is certain that readers would have been expecting something on Rafi with Naushad today, but they would find the inclusion of C Ramchandra surprising and somewhat contrived. While Naushad is the most important composer to have laid the foundation of the Rafi legend, C Ramchandra […]

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Naushad’s exceptional Mukesh

July 22, 2015

A tribute on Mukesh’s 92nd birth anniversary (22 July 1923 – 27 August 1976) If someone had asked me a few years ago who the second most prolific male singer of Naushad was, I would have never guessed Mukesh. His songs number only 26 compared to 149 of Rafi. If you compare Mukesh songs by […]

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Naushad’s “The Singing Girl Next Door”: Suraiya

June 15, 2015

A tribute on her 86th birth anniversary (15 June 1929 – 31 January 2004) Our last singing star, Suraiya, attained incredible heights of popularity bordering on mass hysteria. She started her singing career, as a child artiste, with Naushad; subsequently, she sang playback for Mehtab in a few films; she graduated as an actor-singer and […]

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