Wishing everyone a very Happy Janmashtami with best songs on Krishna and the flute
Thanks to several TV serials, Amar Chitra Katha mythology comics, and other sources everyone knows Lord Krishna story by heart. The cruel King Kans marries off his dear sister Devki to his close friend Vasudev (वसुदेव), and decides to drive them in his chariot himself to her marital home, when he hears a prophecy from the sky, You fool! The eighth child of this couple would be the cause of your death. An enraged Kans takes out his sword to slay them when his sister Devki pleads with him, Brother! you need fear only the eighth child. Pregnancy cannot be hidden, just take away the eighth child, and please spare our lives. A worried Kans puts them in prison anyway under his guards. And not taking any chance that the eighth child may decide to be born randomly, kills each newborn by smashing its head on stone block.
A tribute to Mukesh on his 47th Remembrance Day (22 July 1923 – 27 August 1976) in the series on SN Tripathi
Last month radio, print and visual media was awash with tributes to Mukesh on his birth centenary (22 July 1923 – 27 August 1976). All the tributes were unanimous that he was gifted with an extremely sonorous and melodious voice. He touched the hearts of the listeners with his voice which had a natural pathos. He didn’t sing too many songs, but there were movies with superhit songs galore, but just one song of Mukesh soared over the others. He repeated his magic with SN Tripathi too. Just remember his Laut ke aa…aa laut ke aa ja mere meet tujhe mere geet bulate hain (Rani Roopmati, 1960). And there are more timeless songs: Nain ka chain churakar le gayi (Chandramukhi, 1960); Thane kajaliya bana lun (Veer Durgadas, 1960) and so on.
Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios
Author: Gregory D Booth
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2008
Pages (including Index and References): 321
Price (Amazon Kindle Edition): ₹357
The SOY readers’, especially S Joseph’s, request to write a review of “Behind the Curtain” predates the series on Arrangers and Musicians, and my own desire to review the book goes further back by some years, well before the pandemic, when I would have written it as “In Conversation with Gregory Booth” – because during one of his regular visits to India, I had set up a meeting with him, but at the last moment he got stuck up in a small town in Western UP due to a medical emergency in the family of his musician friend he was visiting.
Guest Article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) & Ashok M Vaishnav (English Translation)
(Continuing their series on the Arrangers and Musicians our guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) now write on S Hazara Singh who played several instruments, but became a legend with Hawaiian guitar. His Hawaiian guitar pieces became the identity of many superhit songs of OP Nayyar and several other music directors. His independent LP albums of tunes of old film songs he played on the guitar sold like hot cakes.
Piyush ji and Ashok ji have demonstrated through this series how important was the role of the musicians and the arrangers in embellishing the songs. S Hazara Singh is one of the legends whose Hawaiian guitar pieces in many songs transformed a shell into a beautiful sculpture. Thank you Piyush ji and Ashok ji for another excellent article in the series, and making us aware of S Hazara Singh’s contributions. – AK)
In the initial phase of film music, the instruments like harmonium, shehnai, flute, sarangi were used mainly for the music support of a film song. However, with advent of new generation of experimentalist music directors like Pankaj Mullick, Anil Biswas, Khemchand Prakash etc. instruments like piano and different types of violins, accordions, guitars, pianos, saxophones etc. also found way into film music compositions. With arrangers and instrumentalists from Goa Christian Western music also joining the film music industry, film music underwent a fundamental shift.
In this period of transformation of Hindi film music, sometime around 1942, in the city of Karachi, of the then undivided India, a young man worked as a craftsman of peti (harmonium). He was also very good at crafting the reeds and ‘tuning’ the assembled harmonium pieces. Not before long, he also started working on different string instruments. As the providence would have it, he came to the notice of Ram Singh, the famous saxophone player of the early era during his frequent travels between Bombay and Karachi for recordings. He invited this young man to Bombay. After initial hesitation, somewhere around 1947, the young man did land up in Bombay. The luck was favourable to him as he immediately got his chance to play guitar in the Khemchand Prakash orchestra for the two iconic songs Aayega aanewala and Mushkil hai bahut mushkil (Mahal, 1949).
A tribute to Rafi on his 43rd Remembrance Day with the continuing series on SN Tripathi
In SN Tripathi Part 1 (1930s and 40s) we became familiar with his multi-faceted personality: an actor, a singer, a music director, and surprisingly also a director – though of post-50s films. But post-50s we know him mostly as a music director, and we slot him in a narrow range – generally for his sweet melodies and classical-based songs and dances.
And the award for the Best Male Singer goes to?
KL Saigal in most of his active years was a colossus and, thus, the answer to this rhetorical question was a foregone conclusion. In 1942, Saigal had just one film, Bhakt Surdas, but that was enough to make his songs etched in the memories of music lovers forever. To be sure, there were many other male singers as well, such as KC Dey, Surendra, GM Durrani, Khan Mastana, Rafiq Ghaznavi etc. Out of a total of 84/85 songs in my list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the overview post, there are 23 male solos, distributed among 15 singers as in the table below.
Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to the legendary saxophone player Manohari Singh on his 13th Remembrance Day
(Our immortal songs are memorable not only because of the melody created by the music director, but also because of the preludes, interludes, the musicians who played them unrecognised, and the arrangers who decided in co-ordination with music director which instruments came when for how long. This combined effort created a beautiful ensemble.
Our guest authors, Piyush M Pandya (originally in Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) have been writing an excellent series of articles on the Arrangers and Musicians who remained behind the curtain, but who deserve our recognition. They have already written on Sebastian D’Souza, Anthony Gonsalves, Enoch Daniels, Kishore Desai. In their fifth article in the series, Piyushji and Ashokji now put the spotlight on the legendary saxophone player Manohari Singh on his 13th Remembrance Day (8 March 1931 – 13 July 2010).
Manohari Singh has the rare distinction of appearing on the screen prominently in a famous song with his saxophone. The guest writers start this article with that iconic song. Thank you Piyushji and Ashokji for another excellent article on the Arrangers and Musicians. – AK).
Guest article by Anita Rupavataram
(There is no upper age limit for falling in love. As our octogenarian love guru, DP Rangan, has explained in his recent series of articles, love entails going through different phases: ecstasy, agony, flippancy, and finally when the things go wrong, shikwa/shikayat. This has led to a mushroom growth of counsellers and self-proclaimed relationship experts.
Our guest author Anita Rupavataram is rightly sceptical of such experts. She cites some literary sources, too, in her support. Nevertheless, this has not deterred Bollywood, and we have several songs in the nature of an advisory to the lovers.
Anita had debuted as a guest author on SOY in February 2022. This is her second article for the blog. She also writes her own blog of which I am a regular follower. Anita writes very well as you can see from her uncluttered style. Therefore, when she offered to write for SOY on this theme, I had no hesitation in welcoming it as it fitted very well with the series by the Love Guru. Thank you Anita, for an excellent article. – AK)
One of the sections I consciously avoid in any book store is that on self-help books. Belonging to a generation where there were no life coaches and relationship experts during the growing up years, life as it rolled out was (and is still) the biggest advisor and teacher. Thus, there is no connect with such self-improvement books. Today, however, there is no dearth of specialists who could advice you on just about anything under the sun. This is more the case with so many social media platforms mushrooming.
Guest article by DP Rangan
(Our love guru DP Rangan, after exploring the ecstacy, agony and flippant sides of love, now explores another common aspect shikwa/shikayat, or ‘complaint’, ‘grievance’. Nay, Mr Rangan explains in the introductory lines that shikwa/shikayat is universal to human nature in all social interactions.
The 84-year young Mr Rangan is a man of unbounded zest for life. Such a person has to be an expert in love, as in so many other things. Thank you Mr Rangan for another excellent article. – AK)
When human beings in their evolutionary history crossed wandering stage and became a settled community, they designed rules and regulations to govern themselves to ensure equity in their day to day life so that the weakest among them could also coexist. With such close day to day dealings among themselves, friction arose from time to time. In order to get redressal of their grievances they had to formally lodge their shikwa/shikayat with the deciding authorities. This trait continues to prevail over aeons. There are several types of shikwa/shikayats.
Today the Songs of Yore completes thirteen years. The last three years have brought great disruption in the world. In the years 2020 and 2021, the pandemic was on a rampage. The year gone by saw a debate whether Covid19 is gone or still around. Finally, the scientific opinion has veered around that this unwanted guest is now a part of our lives, with its virulence greatly mellowed down. Finally, everybody has started travelling and taking part in functions and get-togethers. I, too, had more than a fair share of travels, and family and friends’ functions and get-togethers that two years ago I would have declined without any hesitation.
