The SoY award for the best Music Director goes to?
This is like completing the circle, which means you come to the same point from where you started. So I look back at the mother post on the overview of the best songs of 1955 and I am amazed at the overwhelming response it generated, both in numbers and quality. As I said earlier, the methodology is not some kind of poll, but trying to capture the sense of the house. The SoY regulars would also recall that at the readers’ suggestions, I also wrote categoriwise summaries – Wrap Up 1 for the best male playback singer; Wrap Up 2 for the best female playback singer and Wrap Up 3 on the best duets. These are parts of the whole. Therefore, it is obvious that the final wrap up on the best music director would also draw a great deal from these subsidiary posts. Here I am presenting the final wrap up of the string of posts that originated from the readers’ suggestions and which took shape as we moved on, as my Christmas and New Years Greetings to all.
Guest article by Subodh Agrawal
(SoY readers are familiar with Subodh’s elegant writing on songs based on classical ragas. He surpasses himself with this outstanding article on one of the most popular and accessible ragas – Malkauns – which he describes as the greatest of pentatonic ragas. Subodh carries his scholarship lightly with an easy and fluent style of writing. – AK)
I began this series with ten iconic film songs in different ragas – songs that are good enough to be used by students of classical music to get an intuitive feel for the raga. I deliberately left out the greatest iconic song of all – Man tarpat hari darshan ko aaj in Malkauns, because I hoped to do a separate post on this raga. Finally, I am here to share my love for this great raga with the SoY family.
Guest article by Subodh Agrawal
(Followers of SoY are familiar with Subodh’s elegant writings on songs based on classical ragas. He surpasses himself with this article on one of the most popular and accessible ragas – Malkaus – which he describes as the greatest pentatonic raga. He bears his scholarship lightly with his fluent and easy style of writing. Here is his fifth article in the series – AK
PS. Please see comment no 12 in the comment box. Because of some problem, a large part of this post has disappeared. Full version has been revived in the other post with the same title. Interested readers are requested to visit the other post. This post is not being deleted because many valuable comments are here – AK)
I began this series with ten iconic film songs in different ragas – songs that are good enough to be used by students of classical music to get an intuitive feel for the raga. I deliberately left out the greatest iconic song of all – Man tarpat hari darshan ko aaj in Malkauns, because I hoped to do a separate post on this raga. Finally, I am here to share my love for this great raga with the SoY family.
I often wondered who filled in when New Theatres stalwarts led by KL Saigal headed for Bombay in the early 1940s? I got my answer while searching for songs from the New Theatres era, when an unknown voice held me spellbound for its incredible charm. Then some videos turned up on the YouTube. So here was not only an excellent voice but also a young and handsome face by the name of Asit Baran who had some very successful movies and outstanding songs during 1941-43. For a long time I could not find any material on him – several friends, whose knowledge I admired, seemed to know nothing about him beyond having heard his name. Then sometime back, on my request, Mr Sharad Dutt, a well known writer and short-film maker on music personalities (you would have seen his films on Naushad, Mukesh, Anil Biswas, Talat Mahmood, Pankaj Mullick etc on Doordarshan), was able to locate a very old clipping of the Screen magazine, which contained an obituary on Asit Baran. Thus I am presenting this tribute to Asit Baran, one of the unknown stars of the New Theatres, on his death anniversary November 27 (he passed away on November 27, 1984 at the age of 69).
Guest article by Ashok Vaishnav
(Mr Ashok Vasihnav needs no introduction to the regulars at Songs of Yore. His highly informed and researched comments are several times worth the original article. Therefore, his movement from the bottom boxes to the top line is a mere formality. I had written on Twin Songs more than two years ago, which was primarily about the plain vanilla songs which had a male and a female version. Anu Warrier also presented some twin songs in her blog recently. Mr Vaishnav, as is his wont, recognises that Twin Songs are a small sub-set of a larger group, and delves deep and wide into this fascinating class of songs. In the first of his series of articles on this theme, he presents an overview of the various types of multiple version songs. A befitting Diwali gift to celebrate the multicoloured lights and sparklers. – AK)
“In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song. It can sometimes have a pejorative meaning implying that the original recording should be regarded as the definitive or “authentic” version, and all others merely lesser competitors, alternatives or tributes (no matter how popular).” [Source: Cover version].
A tribute on his death anniversary October 31
When Harvey wrote Sun mere bandhu re on SD Burman’s film-songs quite some time back, my first reaction was that he had taken away my theme. Now I am thankful that he did it, because I would have been in a serious dilemma as to which ones to leave, as each of his songs is a gem and I did want to include a number of his non-film songs. His non-film songs make a wonderful landscape, much larger and no less beautiful, though may be somewhat less known.
Remembering Durga, Sangeet Mahakumbh at Patna and Pandit Kumar Gandharva
There are great romantic lovers like Dev Anand renowned for their ways with women. And there are illiterate, bumbling ones no less endearing like Raj Kapoor with Padmini in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Bahti Hai – so has been my romance with Raga Durga for over 35 years.
The SoY award for the best duet goes to?
Now this series is about to come to an end. My first first wrap up on the best male solos had a similar question mark as there was indeed a tough choice between all the top singers Mohamad Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar. In the second wrap-up on the best female solos, the surprise was gone because it was a choice between Lata Mangeshkar, Lata Mangeshkar, Lata Mangeshkar….That would be the situation most of the 1950’s and 60’s. For the duet, the great diversity comes back. Rarely there would be another year with so many great duets in the voices of all the great singers. Most of the duets have become a landmark in our film music history. For a comprehensive list you may refer to the mother post on the Best songs of 1955. Here I am selecting the best ten duets, which are not in the order of preference.
SoY award for the best female playback singer goes to Lata, Lata, Lata, Lata….Mangeshkar
(It is a while since I wrote the survey article on the Best songs of 1955 and its first wrap up on the Best male playback singer of 1955. Then a number of interesting themes came up, and completing this string of posts somehow went out of sight. By the time I remembered, it was coming quite close to Lata Mangeshkar’s birth anniversary. Therefore, I am coinciding it with her anniversary as my greetings to her. I realise this is not a satisfactory way of handling this series. Hopefully from the next year onwards I should be able to complete a particular year’s posts in continuity. – AK)
When I wrote the first wrap up on the best male playback singers of 1955, I posed it with a question mark, and as we saw, there was indeed a tough choice between all the six great male playback singers – Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey and Kishore Kumar. The scenario changes completely in the case of female playback singers. Not only in 1955, but most of the 50’s and 60’s you could pick up ten top songs and they might all be Lata Mangeshkar’s. Never had any playback singer dominated more than this, nor anyone has done so since. Therefore, my using a similar question mark to maintain the form would be like a recent award function anchored by Shahrukh Khan. This was when Vidya Balan was wining all the awards for Dirty Picture. After the customary ‘And the award for the best actor (female) goes to..’, the envelope containing her name was announced. When she jumped with excitement, Shahrukh Khan snapped at her, ‘Vidya, you should stop acting, you know that you are going to get the award.’
When I wrote on the songs of nadi and naav sometime back, I thought one kind of journey was complete (with Harvey’s majhi). But I had missed a crucial element as I realised from Ashok Vaishnavji’s comments. The boat has to reach its shore, and the journey is not complete till you have reached kinare.
This is like completing the circle, which means you come to the same point from where you started. So I look back at the mother post on the overview of the best songs of 1955 and I am amazed at the overwhelming response it generated, both in numbers and quality. As I said earlier, the methodology is not some kind of poll, but trying to capture the sense of the house. The SoY regulars would also recall that at the readers’ suggestions, I also wrote categoriwise summaries – Wrap Up 1 for the best male playback singer; Wrap Up 2 for the best female playback singer and Wrap Up 3 on the best duets. These are parts of the whole. Therefore, it is obvious that the final wrap up on the best music director would also draw a great deal from these subsidiary posts. Here I am presenting the final wrap up of the string of posts that originated from the readers’ suggestions and which took shape as we moved on, as my Christmas and New Years Greetings to all.
