A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.

Best duets

Best songs of 1949: Wrap Up 4

Ae mohabbat unse milne ka bahana ban gaya

November 20, 2016

And the SoY Award for the Best Duet goes to? It is always a pleasure to write the Wrap Up 4, which is for the best duets of the year. The best solos always generate some controversy. In male solos this year, there was a close tie between Rafi and Mukesh. My conclusion that Mukesh […]

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Mukesh’s vintage duets

August 27, 2016

A tribute to Mukesh on his 40th death anniversary (22 July 1923 to 27 August 1976) Mukesh debuted well into the vintage era with Dil hi bujha hua hai to in Nirdosh (1941). His first few years as actor-singer did not do him much good. He discovered his calling as a playback singer when his […]

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Shankar-Jaikishan’s female dance duets

May 29, 2016

My post on Shankar-Jaikishan’s dance songs for Lata Mangeshkar generated a great deal of enthusiasm. I think the readers were with me that these songs are of exceptional quality and their orchestration and picturisation are very unique to SJ. KS Bhatiaji who has a great liking for SJ, matching mine for Naushad, suggested that their […]

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Best duets of the not-so-unloved Mahendra Kapoor

March 14, 2016

I had described Mahendra Kapoor as the most unloved singer in my last post on him. I have to modify that phrase, because the comments on that post indicate that he had more passionate fans and admirers than I had realised. Despite not counting myself among his passionate fans, I have a great liking for […]

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Best songs of 1950: Wrap Up 4

November 11, 2015

Songs of Yore Award for the Best Duet goes to? (Wishing Happy Diwali to everyone) Hans recently commented in some other context that duets generally create less impact than solos. This is certainly true of tennis where the doubles players are not counted in the same league as Federers and Djokovics. In the olden days before the open […]

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Naushad’s Long-distance Duets of Separation

August 19, 2015

Hindi films have a very neat structure. They can be divided into three parts – romance, conflict and resolution. The lovers meet, or childhood friends grow up into lovers and dance around trees and sing romantic songs. Then the villain strikes, who lusts for the girl or her wealth, and kidnaps her; or the girl’s […]

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Best songs of 1951: Wrap-Up 4

December 1, 2014

And the award for the best duet goes to? We are now nearing the end of the Review of the songs of 1951, with the penultimate wrap-up – of the best duets – before the final wrap-up of the best music director. The wrap-up of the best solos, especially of the male solos, caused some […]

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Kishore Kumar’s duets by SD Burman

October 13, 2014

A tribute on Kishore Kumar’s death anniversary October 13 It is befitting that I am completing my (renewed) series on SD Burman with the singer he was most fond of. With 115 songs, he gave Kishore Kumar more songs than any other (male) singer. Surjit Singh’s site indicates that out of this only 53 were […]

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Rafi’s duets by SD Burman

July 31, 2014

A tribute to Rafi on his death anniversary, July 31 If you revisit my earlier post on Rafi’s songs (solos) composed by SD Burman, along with the readers’ comments, you realise the high regard in which the music lovers hold their combination. In spite of his known fondness for Kishore Kumar, SD Burman had something […]

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Best songs of 1953: Wrap Up 3

October 6, 2013

Songs of Yore Award for the best duet goes to? After the survey post on the best songs of 1953, I have already done Wrap Up 1 on the best male solos and Wrap Up 2 on the best female solos. Continuing the series I present the third Wrap Up on the best duets. […]

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