SD Burman

Rafi’s best songs by SD Burman

A tribute on Rafi’s death anniversary July 31

SD Burman & Md RafiThere is one thing common between Mohammad Rafi and SD Burman. If Rafi was the most versatile singer, SD Burman was the most versatile composer. He is the only music director who can claim to have composed equally great music with Rafi as with Kishore Kumar, his two main singers. There were also films in which he used the voice of Hemant Kumar for Dev Anand, when he composed unparalleled songs like Ye raat ye chandni phir kahan. And whenever he used Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood and Mukesh, he created songs which became landmarks of their career.

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Geeta Dutt’s best songs by SD Burman

A tribute on her death anniversary July 20

S D Burman and Geeta DuttThere is a great deal common between Geeta Dutt and SD Burman – both being Bengalis is just one of them. Geeta Dutt was born on 23rd November, 1930 at Faridpur in East Bengal (now in Bangladesh) in a prosperous landlord family.  Her  family had to move to Bombay in 1942 in the wake of Quit India movement, which turned anti-landlord. Her singing was noticed by the music director Hanuman Prasad when he was passing by their apartment. He gave her a break in Bhakt Prahlad (1946) to sing a few lines in a chorus. She had some more songs in 1946, but none that could create any ripples.

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Best songs of 1955: Final Wrap Up 4

The SoY award for the best Music Director goes to?

Naushad-SD Burman-OP Nayyar-Shankar Jaikishan-C Ramchandra-NashadThis is like completing the circle, which means you come to the same point from where you started. So I look back at the mother post on the overview of the best songs of 1955  and I am amazed at the overwhelming response it generated, both in numbers and quality. As I said earlier, the methodology is not some kind of poll, but trying to capture the sense of the house. The SoY regulars would also recall that at the readers’ suggestions, I also wrote categoriwise summaries – Wrap Up 1 for the best male playback singer; Wrap Up 2 for the best female playback singer and Wrap Up 3 on the best duets. These are parts of the whole. Therefore, it is obvious that the final wrap up on the best music director would also draw a great deal from these subsidiary posts.  Here I am presenting the final wrap up of the string of posts that originated from the readers’ suggestions and which took shape as we moved on, as my Christmas and New Years Greetings to all.

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SD Burman: His wonderful landscape of non-film songs

A tribute on his death anniversary October 31

S D BurmanWhen Harvey wrote Sun mere bandhu re on SD Burman’s film-songs quite some time back, my first reaction was that he had taken away my theme. Now I am thankful that he did it, because I would have been in a serious dilemma as to which ones to leave, as each of his songs is a gem and I did want to include a number of his non-film songs. His non-film songs make a wonderful landscape, much larger and no less beautiful, though may be somewhat less known.

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My favourite ‘special’ Asha Bhosle songs

My greetings on her birthday September 8

Asha BhosleKnowing that Asha Bhosle has a huge fan following and there are people more passionate about her than Lata Mangeshkar, I have to carefully choose my words to describe my relationship with her. If I am asked to choose only 20 singers from the 1930s to 60s for company on a remote island, Asha Bhosle probably won’t figure in my list. There are zillion themes swirling in my head for my blog, but doing OP Nayyar-Asha Bhosle is not one of them, much less RD Burman-Asha Bhosle. Yet there is a very special Asha Bhosle, very unique, incredibly sweet and out of this world. Here are my favourite ten ‘special’ Asha Bhosle songs as my greetings to her on her 78th birthday. (Warning: If you are looking for the ‘best’ songs of Asha Bhosle, you need not proceed further – you will not find Aaiye meherbaan or Jaaiye aap kahaan jayenge here).

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