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

Naushad

Best songs of 1946: Final Wrap Up 4

December 25, 2019

And the SoY Award for the Best Music Director goes to? Wishing Merry Christmas to the readers and a tribute to Naushad on his Birth Centenary (25 December 1919 – 5 May 2006) I need not have put a question mark about the best music director of 1946. Rarely one comes across such a single-horse […]

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Best songs of 1948: Final Wrap Up 4

Naushad_C Ramchandra_Ghulam Haider_Husnlal Bhagatram

December 25, 2017

And the Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director goes to? I start with wishing the readers Merry Christmas. After the Overview post and the three category-wise wrap ups – Wrap Up 1 for the best male solos, Wrap Up 2 for the best female solos, and Wrap Up 3 for the best […]

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Best songs of 1949: Final Wrap Up 5

December 24, 2016

The SoY Award for the Best Music Director goes to? For the final wrap up, I can do no better than quote Mahesh: “The year 1949 itself was the biggest winner of all.” That refers to the historical place of the year in the evolution of Hindi film songs which we have discussed in the […]

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Naushad’s gems before ‘Rattan’ (1944)

December 3, 2015

It is well known that Naushad zoomed off in an orbit of his own with Rattan (1944). He had debuted four years earlier as independent music director with Prem Nagar (1940). To be exact, his first recorded song was Bata do koi kaun gali more Shyam in the voice of Leela Chitnis for Kanchan (1941), […]

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The Great Mughal and The Empress of playback singing

September 28, 2015

Wishing Lata Mangeshkar a very happy 86th birth anniversary (b. 28 September 1929) with her songs for Naushad A blog would start losing its appeal if it became too predictable. Today is one such day when everyone is going to exclaim, ‘’I knew it!’ However, there is no way I can avoid it. There are […]

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Asha Bhosle with reluctant Naushad and C Ramchandra: Part 2 (duets)

Asha Bhosle with C Ramchandra and Naushad

September 18, 2015

I could not have imagined until sometime back that I would be writing two posts back to back on Asha Bhosle. But I have since become conscious of a strong Asha Bhosle Fan Club on SoY. In my last post on her songs with Naushad and C Ramchandra, we saw that even though they might […]

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Asha Bhosle with reluctant Naushad and C Ramchandra: Part 1 (solos)

September 8, 2015

Greeting her happy birthday on her 82st birth anniversary (b. 8 September 1933) Asha Bhosle’s position in the early 1950s was very unenviable. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had debuted as a playback singer (Aap Ki Sewa Mein; 1947) only a year before her (Chunariya; 1948), but the former stormed the music scene in 1949 […]

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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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C Ramchandra-Naushad comparison and contrast with Rafi

July 31, 2015

A tribute to Rafi on his 35th death anniversary It is certain that readers would have been expecting something on Rafi with Naushad today, but they would find the inclusion of C Ramchandra surprising and somewhat contrived. While Naushad is the most important composer to have laid the foundation of the Rafi legend, C Ramchandra […]

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Naushad’s exceptional Mukesh

July 22, 2015

A tribute on Mukesh’s 92nd birth anniversary (22 July 1923 – 27 August 1976) If someone had asked me a few years ago who the second most prolific male singer of Naushad was, I would have never guessed Mukesh. His songs number only 26 compared to 149 of Rafi. If you compare Mukesh songs by […]

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