Year: 2019

Hemant Kumar’s duets with ‘other’ singers

A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his 99th birth anniversary (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989)

Hemant Kuma-Asha Bhosle-Geeta Dutt

I had written on the best duets of Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in my first year of blogging. Then I had said: “Hemant Kumar in his voice brought the beauty of Bengal and melody of Rabindra Sangeet. When he joined with Lata Mangeshkar the effect was magical. Easily the best duets of Hindi films are of Hemant-Lata”. I further described these duets as the ultimate in melody. Now Songs of Yore has entered the tenth year, and Hemant Kumar would have entered his centenary year today. All this while I have been struck by the beauty of his fascinating duets with ‘other’ singers like Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle, and was looking for some opportunity to write a post on them. While Lata Mangeshkar personified melody and sweetness with Hemant Kumar, the ‘other’ singers brought their own unique verve and joy, and combining with his deep melodious voice created a different kind of charming effect.

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Songs of Yore completes nine years

Songs of Yore Ninth AnniversaryAfter about the fifth year, I have been approaching each anniversary of the Songs of Yore with some apprehension whether it has been able to hold the readers’ interest and maintain quality. As I look back on the ninth year completing today, I am quite satisfied, and a great deal of the credit goes to the readers who have continued to participate with high-quality comments. Some readers have taken the trouble of writing guest articles which have significantly enhanced the blog. I owe my heartfelt thanks to all the readers.

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 3

Guest article by Shalan Lal (After the earlier two articles covering the 1930s and 1940s, Shalan Lal concludes her three-part thesis on chorus songs with the Golden Decade of the 1950s. As we have come to expect from her, these articles do not merely present the representative songs of the period, but also take usREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 2

Guest article by Shalan Lal

(In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona.  This was published on 2 May 2019. The second part, dealing with  the second decade of the 1940s, and chorus songs from this era, gives a good insight into the main trends during this period and style of music. I compliment Shalan Lal on another well-researched article and thank her on behalf of the readers for her painstaking work. Shalan Lal is a UK-based academic. – AK)

Three Decades of Chorus Songs
Introduction and the Second Decade 1941-50

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Now into the tuneful forties.

In this section we discuss how the choruses and musical accompaniment in the films already established by the studio-based film companies had been used by the other companies to further the art of songs and chorus songs to their advantage.

The three film companies, New Theatres, Prabhat, and Bombay Talkies, mentioned in the first part of this series, developed internal institutional troubles and towards the end of the forties they were going to be dissolved or go limping to vanish; so more or less individual music directors became independent and allowed themselves to be hired by the film companies and the individual entrepreneurs to do contracted piece-work and free to do work for other companies on contracts. The reason for this was that the studios themselves would go on renting their space and facilities to other companies as well. Music directors would hire outside halls to rehearse their songs. As playback became gradually became the norm, the recording studios would need their studios booked in advanced.

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 1

Guest article by Shalan Lal (Readers are aware, when Shalan Lal  writes on a topic she writes a research paper as if  for an academic seminar, even if it is for a blog like ‘Songs of Yore’. She does a similar comprehensive work to discuss the chorus songs of the films of yore. This isREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

व्याकरण, उच्चारण और उत्पीड़न

Phonetic and grammatical violence in songs

Piya laut ke ana 'bhul' gaye

Once Raja Bhoj went around his kingdom to see for himself the condition of his subjects. Seeing a frail woodcutter burdened by the weight of the log on his head, the king asked him solicitously, “किम्‌ ते बाधति भारम्‌?” Does the weight hurt you? The anguished woodcutter replied somewhat sharply: “भारम्‌ न बाधते राजन्‌ यथा ‘बाधति’ बाधते.” I am not hurt so much by the weight on my head as by your use of ‘बाधति’ instead of (the correct form) बाधते. The story is used at two levels. One, to make the political point that Sanskrit was a language of the masses at some point of time. But its practical purpose was to illustrate the point of Sanskrit grammar regarding Aatmenpad and Parasmaipad forms of verbs. And the interesting part was the royal being casual in grammar, whereas the commoner was ultra-sensitive to the correct usage to the point of ticking off the king. (Note: Parasmaipad verb follows the commonly known form पठति/ पठतः/ पठन्ति, whereas Aatmnepad goes बाधते/ बाधेते/ बाधन्ते, the difference being somewhat similar to transitive and intransitive verbs. – AK)

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Best songs of 1946: And the winners are?

Anmol Ghadi-Shahjehan-Safar-Eight DaysAs I started traversing back from the 1950s to the 40s in the year-wise review of film songs, I mentioned that we are entering the era of more unknown than the known. This is best exemplified by the year 1946: Out of 153 films in the year, nothing is known about five films, whether its actors, song titles, what to speak if its singers etc. It is a huge number of films in a year, overtaken only in a few years in the entire history of talkie films starting from 1931. Of the over 1270 known song-titles, nothing is known about singers of about 740 songs, i.e. about 58% of all the songs. My list of MEMORABLE SONGS in any year has been generally well over 100, but in the year 1946, I could not stretch it beyond 78/81 (one song has a male solo and female solo versions, and two songs have a male solo and a male-female duet versions). Even in this list many songs would appear to be unfamiliar and unheard. That makes the exercise of the year-wise review more challenging as well as interesting.

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The Unified Theory of Fools

Wishing the readers a very Happy April Fools’ Day

April Fools' Day

When I wrote a sincere article, doing a comprehensive review of the songs of 1947 on the 1st April last year, Canasya commented, “you have fooled us”, because he was expecting something else appropriate to the occasion. N Venkataraman echoed the sentiments. By now, the readers have a good picture of Venkataramanji in their minds. He has earned a reputation for himself as a towering intellectual. Canasya has so far shrouded himself in complete anonymity (except for a brief lifting of the veil once), though his erudite comments are well known to the readers. I hope he would not mind if I disclose that he is a BTech, MBA and a PhD, and is a Don (not the Amitabh Bachchan-type, but academic) at one of the premier IIMs. You don’t get any smarter than that. Yet, these two learned persons felt that they were fooled. They are not two individuals, but they represent a large segment of the population. These are the people with high Mensa scores. Additionally, they fortify themselves for the 1st April by keeping a watch on the calendar for a year so that they are not caught off-guard. (Venkataramanji kept awake the whole preceding night, and pinched himself at 00.55 AM that the 1st April has arrived, and alerted everyone on SoY by posting a comment at that unearthly hour.) When the day comes, they smile unto themselves, look into any corners and crevices, and are on high alert for any hidden meaning in the day’s happenings and conversations with friends and family. When the world around them goes about its business as usual, they feel cheated because all their precaution has gone waste. They are Clever Fools who are fooled when no one makes a fool of them on the April Fools’ Day.

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Barahmasa in film songs

Wishing a very Happy Holi to all the readers When the first monsoon rains quench the thirst of the parched earth, and dry rivulets, water bodies and ponds get filled with water, and green shoots emerge from dry plants and trees, and the farmers rush to the slushy fields for transplantation, it’s a time forREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

The silent giant-killer and the man of many-splendoured talents: Ravi

A tribute to the music director Ravi on his 7th death anniversary (3 March 1926-7 March 2012)

Ravi

How do you describe Ravi winning the Filmfare Award for the Best Music Director for the film Gharana (1961)? This was the year in which the giants of Hindi film music, Naushad (Ganga Jamuna) and Shankar-Jaikishan (Aas Ka Panchhi, Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai, Junglee and Sasural) were at the peak of their career. The year also had superlative scores by C Ramchandra (Stree), Ghulam Mohammad (Shama), Jaidev (Hum Dono), Khayyam (Shola Aur Shabnam) and Salil Chowdhury (Chardiwari, Kabuliwala, Maya and Mem Didi). A silent giant-killer! Though I don’t consider this as a marker of Ravi’s talent. Nor even his second Filmfare Award for Khandan (1965), when compared with SD Burman’s Guide, Roshan’s Bedaagh, Bheegi Raat and Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal, Khayyam’s Mohabbat Isko Kahte Hain, Kalyanji-Anandji’s Himalay Ki God Mein, Jauhar Mehmood in Goa, Purnima and Saheli, and OP Nayyar’s Mere Sanam. Not to mention Shankar-Jaikishan’s hit-factory with Arzoo, Gumnam and Jaanwar. His own Waqt (1965) had far superior music in the year. Ravi was a many-splendoured genius, not because of these two Filmfare Awards, but despite them, composing several iconic songs for different situations, singers, moods and genres. After my series on the greats like Anil Biswas, Naushad, SD Burman, C Ramchandra, Shankar-Jaikishan, OP Nayyar, Roshan and Madan Mohan, if I had asked you who comes next, Ravi’s name would pop up at the top.

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