(Note: Dear Readers,
I believe some registered readers have not been getting email notifications about new posts on SOY. I request all the readers to register themselves again by entering their email in the bottom box captioned “Get mail updates”. You will get a notification from ‘Follow.it’ for confirmation. Please confirm the link, and you will start getting email notifications from future posts.
AK)
I understand most people on SOY know that Saraswati Devi was technically not the first female music director of Hindi film music. As per the current knowledge, two women preceded her – Ishrat Sultana (the singer Bibbo) was the first who composed music for the film Adal-e-Jahangir (1934) and the second was Jaddanbai who gave music for Talaash-e-Haque (1935) in which she also introduced her daughter, the famous Nargis, as a child artiste under the name Baby Rani. Saraswati Devi was really the third with her debut film Jawani Ki Hawa (1935) under the banner of the famed studio, the Bombay Talkies.READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Music Directors
Categories by music director.
Vasant Desai Part 3 (post-50s): His best songs for Lata Mangeshkar
Continuing the series on Vasant Desai, his best songs for Lata Mangeshkar as a tribute to her on her 93rd birthday (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022)
Lata Mangeshkar would have been 93 today. This is her first birthday after she left this mortal world and this calls for a tribute to her. Coincidentally SOY is paying a series of tributes to Vasant Desai who was a class composer but was not counted among the top by the conventional pecking order. His songs for Lata Mangeshkar were exceptionally melodious. Vasant Desai Part 1 was devoted to his multifaceted talent in the vintage era (pre-50s) as an actor, singer and music director. The part 2 onwards are devoted to the post-50s era with which we are all more familiar. Vasant Desai Part 2 was devoted to his male singers in which I also included MF duets. Lata Mangeshkar is by far his most preferred female singer (no surprise there), and quite a good number are unforgettable. It became appropriate to post a tribute to her on her 93rd birthday with her best songs by the maestro in Vasant Desai Part 3. This would also include her duets with a female singer.
Khayyam at the Mountain Peak (2): Songs sans Pahadi
Second part of my two-part tribute to Khayyam (18.2.1927–19.8.2019) on his third Remembrance Day
Once the omission of Khayyam was brought to my notice by a reader, I realised any tribute to him could not be limited to one part. One can divide his work by the period, or by the singers, both are sensible approaches. He created great music from 1950 to 1982. This is a long span, not many of his stalwart peers had such a long productive life. He was not among the top music directors by the conventional pecking order. But he remained at the top without compromising quality, without joining the rat-race, without caring for the current trend. He created his own trend, which was classical, elegant, soulful and deeply moving.
Khayyam at the Mountain Peak (1): Songs on Pahadi
A tribute to Khayyam (18.2.1927–19.8.2019) on his third Remembrance Day
A reader mentioned some time ago that Khayyam has not been covered on SOY. Then I realised that the only post I have included under his name in the side-roll is devoted to his wife, Jagjit Kaur who sang most of her songs under his baton. This is an obvious omission. Khayyam, though not in the race for top billing, always created top class music right through the Golden Era when hundred flowers bloomed, to the post-70s dominated by the triumvirate of RD Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji.
Vasant Desai Part 2 (post-1950s): His male singers
In Vasant Desai Part 1 pertaining to the vintage years (1930s and 40s), we were introduced to his multifaceted talents, including his acting and singing. As per N Venkataraman he had sung a total of 37 songs in Hindi and Marathi. We all agreed that he was an outstanding singer, but surprisingly his singing career came to a complete halt in 1944. The era of the great male playback years was a few years away. The difference between vintage and golden era (post-1950s) is not merely chronological, but also the singing style and emergence of new great playback singers: Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle etc.
Vasant Desai Part 1: A Multifaceted Talent
If a new visitor looks up Songs Of Yore, she would notice some names conspicuously missing in the right-hand scroll of music directors. There is no design in it, it has just happened. Yet I have to thank our regular reader Shachindra Prasad for drawing my attention to the omission of Vasant Desai so far on the blog. We know him primarily as the music director of V Shantaram’s famous films like Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (1955); Toofan Aur Diya (1956); Do Aankhein Barah Hath (1957); Mausi (1958); and outside films like Ardhangini, School Master, Goonj Uthi Shehnai (1959); and Guddi (1971). But during review of songs of the Vintage Era, we came across Vasant Desai as a singer too, besides being a music director. That was not a casual dalliance. Some of the songs sung by him may be a new discovery for most of us, but they are absolutely mellifluous.
Book Review: “The Unforgettable Music of HEMANT KUMAR”
The Unforgettable Music of HEMANT KUMAR
By Manek Premchand
Pages: 441
First Edition: 2020
Blue Pencil, New Delhi
(With study of his Bengali repertoire by Antara Nanda Mondal and Sounak Gupta)
Salil Chowdhury once said if God wanted to sing, he would do it in the voice of Hemant Kumar. Lata Mangeshkar said about him, “Listening to Hemant Da songs, I feel as if a Sadhu is singing bhajan in a temple.” A darling of Bengal where he was known as “Chhoto Pankaj” (Little Pankaj Mullick), and one of the top singers of Rabindra Sangeet. There was something divine about his mellifluous voice. I have not met a person who is not deeply passionate about Hemant Kumar’s voice. This blog celebrated his centenary in a very comprehensive manner in 2020, anchored by two erudite articles by N Venkataraman – Hemantayan Part 1 and Hemantayan Part 2 and a number of other articles on Hemant Kumar’s music in different combinations. Thus SOY readers’ appetite whetted by the capsules on him, they would lap up Manek Premchand’s exhaustive book on Hemant Kumar.
Hemant Kumar was a man of many parts. We love him as a singer, his non-film songs are as mesmerising as his film songs. If he ruled our hearts in Hindi, he was an icon in Bengal. He continued his professional commitments in both Bombay and Calcutta, shuttling between the two cities at a frenetic pace. He was a composer par excellence where he didn’t show any partiality to his own voice, freely taking other male voices if he considered that more suitable. He also ventured into film production, which barring some exceptions, were a commercial failure. With all that he looked after and provided for a large family. All this, coupled with his smoking habit must have told upon his health. All this is captured in the book in sufficient detail.
हेतुहेतुमद्भूत songs
If you have not studied Hindi in school or forgotten your grammar, the word hetu-hetu-mad-bhoot would leave you quite flummoxed. SOY readers are from different linguistic backgrounds, and I don’t intend to write a primer on Hindi grammar. The only reason I am writing on this unusual topic is that this word came in for use in a very interesting context recently at a lunch hosted by a friend. We were all from the same background, some of us are doing interesting things in our second innings.
Rajendra Krishna with Chitragupta and Ravi: Reaching for the skies
Guest article by Hans Jakhar in continuation of his series on Rajendra Krishna
(When some readers observed that the lyricists have not been give their due importance on SOY, Hans Jakhar offered to write a series of articles on Rajendra Krishna’s combination with different music directors. He has already written two articles in the series on his association with two of his most famous combinations – with C Ramchandra and Madan Mohan. Continuing the series, in this article he covers Rajendra Krishna’s prolific combination with two other music directors, Chitragupta and Ravi. Among his several guest articles, he had earlier written on Shakeel Badayuni’s combination with Ravi.
Not everyone relates to lyrics as intensely as Hans Jakhar does. In most music lovers’ mind a great song is associated with the voice (singer) and the tune (music director). We often lose sight of the contribution of the lyricist, except for a very few prominent ones. Hans has shown his special expertise in analysing the lyrics of a song.
Once Hans takes up a work, he does a thorough job of it in spite of time constraints. He has done this article in face of his personal difficulties. Thank you Hans for another thorough article on a lyricist-music director combination. – AK)
With Chitragupta and Ravi we move into the Rafi territory. It is not that C Ramchandra (CR) or Madan Mohan (MM) did not use Rafi enough, but their main focus was Lata Mangeshkar. CR did not care for Rafi after he got settled with Lata Mangeshkar, and even for MM, Rafi was in an assisting role. When in the 1960s MM used Rafi on a larger scale his use of Rajendra Krishna declined due to Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and Kaifi Azmi getting the lion’s share of good Rafi songs in that phase of his association with MM.
The out of sight genius Hansraj Behl
A tribute to the great Master Hansraj Behl (19 November 1916 – 20 May 1984) on his 105th birth anniversary
A fellow-blogger and SOY regular, Anup (Mehfil Mein Meri), has written an exhaustive series on Lata Mangeshkar’s songs for relatively unknown composers. He did a very sincere job, but some of us were taken aback by inclusion of music directors like Khemchand Prakash, Ghulam Mohammad and Hansraj Behl in the list of ‘unknown’ composers. Khemchand Prakash is among the undisputed greats of the vintage era, and was instrumental in catapulting Lata Mangeshkar to great fame with his Chanda re ja re ja re and Ayega aanewala. Ghulam Mohammad has been well-recognised as an unlucky genius. I have written on both of them. Hansraj Behl has been an equally talented composer whose Chanda gaye pardes chakori aaj ro ro mare (Chakori, 1949) was among the songs that caused Lata Mangeshkar Tsunami in 1949. That was not a flash in the pan, he went on to compose several all-time great songs for her and other major playback singers throughout the Golden Era. Therefore, finding his name among ‘unknown’ composers struck me as odd and I have been intending to write on him since. Yet, I must make it clear that it is not to rebut Anup’s labelling because he explained that for many in the new generation, their awareness does not go beyond the most famous names.