Continuing the tribute for Usha Khanna, her best songs for Mukesh and other male singers
The last post was on Usha Khanna’s best songs for Rafi on her 83rd birth anniversary (b. 7 October 1941). This was also a tribute to Rafi as a part of his centenary celebrations. How does she do with other playback singers? This is where she presents a big surprise. After her debut with Dil Deke Dekho (1959), her main male playback singer in Hum Hindustani (1960) was Mukesh! She gave many memorable songs for Mukesh subsequently, such as Teri nigahon pe mar mar gaye hum, Gori tere chalne se mera dil kurban, Chaand ko kya maloom chahta hai use koi chakor, Aaj tumse door hokar. Each a quintessential Mukesh-gem. It seems quite a misnomer to include Mukesh among ‘other’ singers. It is as if Usha Khanna was born to compose great songs for Mukesh. Similarly I remember an all-time great song by Manna Dey and one by Mahendra Kapoor composed by Usha Khanna. Her spread of singers for their memorable songs is not very wide, but enough to include her among important music directors of the Golden Era. In this post I present a sample of her versatile talent; I would also include duets of these male singers.
Continuing the Centenary Celebrations of Rafi with his songs by Usha Khanna (b. 7 October 1941) wishing her Happy 83rd Birth Anniversary
Music direction in our films had been generally a male monopoly. Usha Khanna was the only one in the Golden Era to break the glass ceiling. Long before her, in the Vintage Era that honours belonged to Saraswati Devi of Bombay Talkies who created everlasting songs sung by non-singers like Ashok Kumar, Devika Rani and Leela Chitnis. Though on record Saraswati Devi was preceded by two more female music directors, Jaddan Bai (Talaash-e-Haque, 1935) and Ishrat Sultana aka Bibbo (Adal-e-Jahangir, 1934), it is Saraswati Devi and her songs that are remembered till today. That is about all regarding female music directors. That makes Usha Khanna’s rise to the top very remarkable, and significantly she created a storm with her very first score Dil Deke Dekho (1959).
Kalyanji-Anandji were extremely melodious composers. But in a crowded field at the top comprising Naushad, SD Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan, OP Nayyar, Roshan, Madan Mohan, etc. they were not among the elite at the High Table. But 70s onwards the gods were kind to them. Kalyanji-Anandji showed amazing talent to adapt themselves to the new voices (read Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhosle) and new kind of music. They were undisputedly part of the Big Troika with RD Burman and Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
Hindi Film Reviews (1931-1950)
By: Arunkumar Deshmukh
Edited by: Prof Surjit Singh
Published by: professor toofaani publishers, East Lansing, MI, USA
I have reviewed Arunkumar Deshmukh’s first two books on this forum – Forgotten Artists of Early Hindi Cinema Book 1 and Book 2. I know enough about Arunji through our couple of meetings and his writings on Atul Song A Day and other blogs that he has many books in him. Sometime back he asked me for my postal address and, after a week, when he asked whether I had received a packet, I had to say, No. Then he sent me the courier’s tracking id, and I came to know it was this book. The courier’s local office was in shambles, and after a good deal of follow up from his side and my side, the book finally arrived, after considerable delay.
And the SOY Award for the best duet of 1941 goes to?
I have mentioned the special charm of duets for the variety they add to the film music. In the Vintage Era it is more pronounced as we come across many gems by singers whose names we have not heard.
The long term average of number of songs gives a pattern – the number of duets is more than male solos but far short of female solos. As we run down the list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the overview post, we can see 21 duets. Sharp observers can see the total of the three categories does not add up. This deviation by 1 or 2 is because of errors in classification – some songs classified as solos should be classified as duets as we discover another distinct voice. Needless to say our analysis is not complete if we don’t include the duets – many of them are absolutely superlative though some singers are completely unknown.
Guest article by Ashok Vaishnav continuing the centenary celebrations of Mohammad Rafi (24.12.1924-31.7.1980)
(Among many romantic solos of Rafi there are several gems hidden under the layer of superhit songs. Some of the hidden gems are more melodious than superhit songs. Our SOY regular and guest author today, Ashok Vaishnav, throws the spotlight on some such gems. Ashokji is a is a prolific writer for SOY on a variety of themes. He is a known Rafi-fan, and it was unthinkable that he would not join in his centenary celebrations
As a retired engineer and now a management trainer Ashokji brings analytical rigour to his articles. He is based out of Ahmedabad. Thank you Ashokji for this interesting write-up. – AK)
The spectrum of Mohammad Rafi’s songs through his entire career contains innumerable hues and shades, even within a given genre. Moreover, every historian or an analyst or a fan of him who have been writing, or airing the views, about his songs have had their own context or view. As such, every piece has always come out as a totally different view under the kaleidoscope. It would, perhaps, be a very safe bet to say that anything written or said about Mohammad Rafi’s songs will start repeating if, and only when, human imaginations and interests (or even those of AI in the future 😊) will reach their limits. The occasion of celebration of Mohammad Rafi’s birth centenary year has made the viewing of the spectrum of Mohammad Rafi’s songs more intense and more microscopic, and hence, much more interesting.
And the SOY Award for the Best Female Singer goes to?
As the readers are aware from the year-wise reviews, the female solos on the average far outnumber the male solos. In the Overview Post of the best songs of 1941, I had included 71 songs. In the Wrap Up 1 about the best male solos in the year I mentioned there were 17 male solos distributed among 7 singers in the list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the overview post. If you run down the same list you would find 35 female solos divided among 19 singers as follows:
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.
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).
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.
