Mohammad Rafi & Johnny Walker in Symbiosis

31 July 2024

Guest article by DP Rangan as a joint tribute to Rafi on his 44th Remembrance Day and Johnny Walker on his 21st Remembrance Day.

(The title of this post says it all. When you think of Johnny Walker you think of Rafi. JW established a presence for himself and soon the producers and music directors realised that giving a song or two to him increased the commercial prospects of a film. For a comedian to achieve that status was remarkable. Thus, many songs picturised on him achieved iconic status, and are often remembered till today towering over other songs in the film. The credit was also due to Rafi who could modulate his voice to sound like JW.

The indefatigable guest author DP Rangan describes this relationship in detail as only he could. The statistics relate to only those songs that Rafi sang for Johnny Walker. JW lip-synched several songs on the screen, sung by other singers. Further, JW acted in many films in which he had no songs or no songs by Rafi. That is why you would see difference in the number of films in two tables – one only for movies, and the other movies and songs.

The symbiotic relationship between JW and Rafi extended to another unique aspect. Their death anniversaries are separated by two days. Today is Rafi’s 44th Remembrance Day. We had JW’s 21st Remembrance Day two days ago. This is a befitting tribute to two great artists in symbiosis. Thank you Mr Rangan for another superb article. – AK)

The first post in the blog SOY for 2024 was posted on 1st January by AKji, on the late Mohammad Rafi (hereinafter referred to as Rafi for brevity), a superlative playback singer who straddled the film world as a giant for over 35 years from 1944 till his early demise in July 1980. A series of articles will probably appear during this centenary year of his birth. This is my humble endeavour to contribute at least one article on the symbiotic relations he had with the noted comedian Johnny Walker (JW). I am stretching the meaning of “symbiosis” a little by taking refuge under the assumption that one is a playback singer and the other is an actor, though both are homo sapiens. AKji has written everything of note about Rafi and I have nothing further to contribute.

 

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Kalyanji-Anandji’s ‘other’ male singers

20 July 2024

If you were to ask me which singer I associate most with Kalyanji-Anandji, my answer would be instantly Mukesh. It was natural I wrote a post on Mukesh-KA in the initial years of the blog with the title, Made for each other. When I started looking for their Rafi songs as a part of his centenary celebrations I was surprised to find that he composed about twice the number of songs for Rafi as he did for Mukesh, and some of them are absolutely gorgeous. That led to a post on Rafi-KA combination on the occasion of Kalyanji’s 96th birth anniversary (30 June 2024).  

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Rafi ‘s songs for “not the top heroes”

10 July 2024

Continuing Rafi’s centenary celebrations, guest article by Sivanandam Palamadai on his songs picturised on not-so-famous actors

(Songs Of Yore has been celebrating Rafi’s centenary year 2024 with a series of articles, some by guest authors. Sivanandam Palamdai, who is one of Rafi’s prominent fans in blogosphere, now writes on his songs for not-so-famous actors. We selected this topic after some mutual back and forth discussion which he describes in some detail in the beginning of his article. But he has modestly not mentioned one development which as the host I must, that shows his utmost dedication and sincerity. After we had settled on this topic, he suffered some serious medical condition requiring hospitalisation. I had no inkling of this until I pinged him after a couple of months how he was doing. Despite my requesting him to forget the article and concentrate on his health, he came up with this brilliant piece as soon as his physical condition permitted.

Mr Palamdai has been a marketing professional, now based out of Pune for about 28 years in semi-retirement by choice. I convey my thanks to him on behalf of all the readers for the painstaking efforts he has taken to write this excellent article. – AK)

Almost two years back, I had written my first  blog for SOY on the theme of Rafi’s songs for unrecognised composers. In this birth centenary year of the legend Mohammad Rafi, AK Ji and myself were discussing on something similar and it was AK Ji who came out with the brilliant idea of focusing on his songs for those actors who were not the top heroes. Writing for SOY is always a privilege and I thank AK Ji for providing me an opportunity to continue my blogs here.

The initial idea was to select one song for all the top heroes, but we felt that would be a huge list and selecting one song would be a difficult task. Hence we decided to rather focus on those actors who were not among the top heroes. I had initially titled this article as Rafi’s songs for lesser-known and obscure actors, but that may lead to some debate as some of the actors cannot be categorized as lesser-known. You will understand once you got through the article. That is the reason I changed this to “Not the top heroes”! The language may appear not so elegant but would describe the category perfectly.  

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Rafi’s best songs by Kalyanji-Anandji

30 June 2024

Continuing the series on Rafi with a tribute to Kalyanji (30 June 1928-24 August 2000) and Anandji (2 March 1933-) on Kalyanji’s 96th birth anniversary.

When you think of Kalyanji-Anandji’s main playback singers, Mukesh comes to mind first. They seemed to be made for each other, and there is already a post on KA-Mukesh combination on this blog with this title. They composed the most songs for Mukesh, a little more than Shankar-Jaikishan. What was remarkable was that while SJ-Mukesh were generally regular for Raj Kapoor, KA had Raj Kapoor as the hero for only two films, their Mukesh songs were widely spread over many actors.  

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Kasme vaade pyar wafa sab

18 June 2024

Our elections are now over after a most toxic campaign. When the two formations were not abusing each other they were competing in promising the electorate moon. Voters seem to have now become smart. They must have realised that most of the promises would not be, cannot be fulfilled. There is no free lunch; if someone offers something free, something else has to give way. But one of the two principal rivals came up with a nice tagline: “My guarantee also means a guarantee that the guarantee would be fulfilled.” That is a good one, something like “Raj Raj Raj & Company”. In Shree 420 the dreams of the people were fulfilled, in the real world the voters have to wait for the bounties promised to them.  

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Songs of Yore completes 14 years

7 June 2024

When I started this blog I never imagined that it would go on for so long. And it is not just clocking year after year. Songs of Yore is perhaps the only place where you will find a comprehensive series on Arrangers and Musicians, the people who embellished the songs with various instrumental preludes, interludes and postludes, but who remained behind the curtain. The series started in January 2023 and after 14 articles has come to a close in April 2024. Our familiarity with names like Sebastian D’Souza, Van Shipley, Anthony Gonsalves, Goody Seervai, Manohari Singh etc. may not have been more than just knowing their names. The series helped us know more about them and also connect famous songs they were associated with. We can’t thank enough the guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) who wrote the articles in the series. They so fittingly titled each article as “The Sculptors of Film Music”. Our indefatigable DP Rangan turned out a number of guest articles on a variety of themes.  

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Best songs of 1941: Wrap Up 1

27 May 2024

And the SOY Award for the Best Male Singer goes to?

In KL Saigal’s active years, the Best Male Singer was generally a one-horse race. He has sung great songs in 1941, too, in the film Lagan. Yet he is not a runaway winner. Nay, I would say with Doctor (1941) in which Pankaj Mullick appears as an actor-singer and the music director, he came up with a score of a lifetime. With six immortal solos from this film which I have included in the Overview Post, Pankaj Mullick is by far the front-runner in 1941.  

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Harmonica songs

14 May 2024

In my series of articles on musical instruments starting from the grand piano I have gradually covered smaller instruments, the last being the flute. I end the series with a still smaller instrument. Harmonica is a pocket-sized most intimate instrument as you play sliding it over your lips and blow air into its holes. Behind each hole is at least one reed. The basic parts of a harmonica are the comb, reed plates and cover plates. The comb, because of its shape like a comb; the reed plates and cover plates make a sound chamber which creates melodious music depending on the skill of the player. Harmonica is also popularly known as the mouth organ. It comes in various types and is used in many genres of music. You can refer to Wikipedia for more technical details.  

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Best songs of 1941

3 May 2024

And the winners are

The regulars of SOY who have been following year-wise reviews of the best songs of the year would have noticed an interesting feature. Every vintage year was characterised by some film(s) whose music became timeless. If we had Rattan in 1944 by Naushad, we had Kismet and Tansen in 1943, and Basant and Bhakt Surdas in 1942. 1941 too is no exception. If KL Saigal is there in a year, you can expect some everlasting songs. But besides Lagan (1941), Doctor helmed by the actor-singer Pankaj Mullick from New Theatres turned out to be an artistic and musical masterpiece. It is remarkable that New Theatres achieved that with a social message.  

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Book Review: DIRECTOR’S CHAIR

22 April 2024

DIRECTOR’ CHAIR
Hindi Cinema’s Golden Age
By Manek Premchand
Published by: Blue Pencil 2024
ISBN: 978-81-956660-8-9; Pages: 571
Price (Paperback on Amazon): ₹750

Manek Premchand is a familiar name to the readers of Songs Of Yore. He has written a number of books on Hindi film music and music personalities. The title of this book and the picture on the cover of a chair with ‘DIRECTOR’ written on it makes it clear that it is about film directors.

If you take films as broadly comprising two verticals – creative and business – the director is the master of the first part, while the producer, who has the purse-strings and who is concerned with box office sales and profits, is in-charge of the business part of film-making. It would appear that a film should be identified more with the producer as he is the ‘owner’ of the product, but when the audience sees it, it impacts them as a creative work: the acting, story-line, its treatment, cinematography, music, editing etc. Even during the studio era, many classic films were identified with the great directors. This was formalised as ‘auteur theory’ by French film critics and directors like Truffaut and Godard which held that a great director does not merely ‘stage’ a script or a novel on to the screen, but he infuses it with his distinct touches and nuances. Thus he has the greatest influence on the film, making him the ‘auteur’ (author) of the film.

This massive book contains mention of over 530 directors from the silent era to 1980. The author has divided the directors into three segments: The Early Masters; The Significant Virtuosos; and The Honourable Others. In addition, the book contains other sections titled: Special Notes; Index of Directors; and Bibliography. Not all the directors in the book get equal space. Some are just mentioned in a list of names. Some are covered in a few lines or paragraphs. Some whose contribution is immense are described in a number of pages. This is how you would expect it to be.

The Introduction briefly describes the process of film making and the central role of the director in the process. Manekji mentions the challenging task he has taken upon himself. His main interest and books have been on the audio world – singers, lyricists and composers. While sitting in the recording room the author wondered how it would be to venture into the visual world where the director straddles as the Master of the Universe. He  also states that at times there is a blurring of roles between the producer, director, music director, hero when personalities exercise influence beyond their defined roles.

The Early Masters starts with Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of India cinema. His expertise was in painting and photography. He got obsessed with films after watching some silent films in France on the life of Christ. On return he made a documentary of Delhi Durbar and, subsequently, by borrowing heavily and pawning wife’s jewellery, he made what was credited as the first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913). Its success spurred him to make more mythologicals. There is a controversy if the credit for the first feature film should go to Raja Pundalik (1912) directed by RG Torne a year earlier. As this film had an English cinematographer, the credit was given to Raja Harishchandra, being a completely Indian enterprise. Some pioneer Dadasaheb Phalke was!

The next profile is of another milestone man, Ardeshir Irani, who is credited with making the first talkies, Alam Ara (1931), which pipped Madan Theatres of Calcutta to the post by less than a month. These great studios straddled both the silent and talkies era. The transition from silent to talkies was viewed with some scepticism, as it was also in Hollywood. Finally, Irani had his day. Though no print of Alam Ara exists, De de khuda ke naam par de de sung by WM Khan is etched in history as the first ever song of Hindi films. (WM Khan happened to reprise this song much later in his own voice, so we are familiar with the tune.)

The profiles of the early masters in this section, such as Baburao Painter, BN Sircar (New Theatres), Chandulal Shah (Ranjit Movietone), Debaki Bose, Himanshu Rai (Bombay Talkies), Mohan Bhavnani, PC Barua etc. show a common thread that there was no clear break between silent and talkies. The early pioneers after making talkies continued making silent films, too, for some years post-1931.

Thus this section is a veritable history of the infancy of our cinema. You also get interesting trivia and idiosyncrasies of the early Masters. For example, the actor-director PC Barua, who was from a princely family, had a leopard as a pet. Homi Wadia wanted to marry the Fearless Nadia, but his mother could not brook his son marrying a firangi Hunterwali (she had a son too from her previous marriage!). They waited for decades, and married only after his mother passed away. They were into their fifties at the time of marriage. A very poignant balance between filial love and romantic love.

The book also describes in detail the disturbing times in the wake of the World War II when the German director and technicians of Bombay Talkies were first interred and, subsequently, deported to Germany. This shocked Himanshu Rai a great deal and he died on 16 May 1940. This sparked an internecine war within the Bombay Talkies. Devika Rani tried to manage it under the dual control of Amiya Chakravarty and Sashadhar Mukherjee. This also didn’t last long. Ironically, the super success of Kismet (1943) brought the differences to a breaking point. Sashadhar Mukherjee along with his brother-in-law Ashok Kumar and other associates broke out to form their own production house, Filmistan.

While on this, Manekji’s narrative suggests that Sashadhar took the help of Ashok Kumar, who was already well-settled in Bombay Talkies, to get a foothold in the Studio. My recollection from readings is the other way round; it was Sashadhar who helped Ashok Kumar, and his other brothers to get entry into Bombay Talkies and the film line.

The Significant Virtuosos contains substantive profiles of Amiya Chakravarty (he made appearance in the earlier section too), AR Kardar, Asit Sen (not the comedian; but the comedian Asit Sen who was senior, also directed a couple of films), Baburao Patel (of FilmIndia fame), Basu Bhattacharya, Basu Chatterjee, Bimal Roy, BR Chopra, Chetan Anand, Dev Anand, Gulzar, Guru Dutt, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, K Asif, KA Abbas, Kamal Amrohi, Kidar Sharma, Mehboob Khan, Nitin Bose, Raj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi, V Shantaram, Vijay Anand, Yash Chopra etc. This is a Roll of Honour of all the great directors and others.

This section is the meat of the book. The profiles are not only descriptive sketches of their lives and works, but are also about their styles and nuances – by illustrations from their famous films. For example, while talking about Seema (1955), Manekji describes how Amiya Chakravarty’s camera shows Nutan’s moral dilemma by focusing on the coin on the street, and her feet and her face. She is hungry, she looks around, since no one is watching she covers the coin, then retracts her feet. Finally, she gives the coin to the urchins. Similarly, you get to understand Bimal Roy’s Point of View shot in the climax of Do Bigha Zameen (1953) when the rickshaw-puller Balraj Sahni is made to race against another rickshaw faster and faster for money. The wheels of the rickshaw start coming off, and you hear his ‘aah’. You know what has happened, but instead of focussing on the accident, Bimal Roy shows wobbling Victoria Memorial. The audience sees the scene through the injured rickshaw puller’s eyes.

AR Kardar was among the very few people who directed films at all the three centres, Lahore, Bombay and Calcutta. Post-Partition, Kardar along with Mehboob Khan went over to Pakistan, but soon they were disillusioned and came back to Bombay to have a very successful run.

The Honourable Others mentions a number of others, some with a few lines, but they are hardly left-overs. The names cover a wide span from the vintage era to the current time. It includes people like Jaddanbai, Leela Chitnis, Master Vinayak (Nanda’s father), Motilal, Prithviraj Kapoor, to Govind Nihalani, Muzaffar Ali etc. In fact you can quarrel with the author on his choice of celebrities for longer profiles and lesser importance to some you may consider more illustrious.

The last section Special Notes packs a lot of interesting information and trivia in 18 pages. One interesting trivia is about the song Dukh bhare din beete re bhaiya (Mother India, 1957), sung by Rafi, Manna Dey, Asha Bhosle and Shamshad Begum. You would imagine the song to be picturised on two men and two women. But in the first part Raj Kumar lip-synchs both Rafi and Manna Dey, and Nargis, both Asha Bhosle and Shamshad Begum. Similarly, in the second part of the song Rajendra Kumar and his lover Kumkum, each get to lip-synch the same two singers. Shakeel Badayuni-Naushad-Mehboob Khan committing such errors! Greatness does not necessarily mean perfection.

Many readers of this blog have been requesting for reviews of interesting books relating to films and music. DIRECTOR’S CHAIR fills up an important gap, and is a worthwhile acquisition. You would like to browse through it again and again. Both the author and the publisher, Blue Pencil deserve our compliments.

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