KL Saigal

Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 1

Thumbnail image for Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 1 July 8, 2025

And the Award for the Best Male Singer goes to? 1940 was a year of churning in the film world. It came at the transition of the first decade of spoken films, 1930s, and the beginning of the 1940s. It was a churning of musical styles when one kind of music making was coming to […]

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Best Songs of 1944: Wrap Up 1

KL Saigal-Surendra July 6, 2021

And the award for the Best Male Solo goes to? In my Overview Post of the best songs of 1944, I had mentioned that in the total songs in the years in which the singers’ names were known, male solos to female solos to duets followed a ratio of 1: 3.69: 1.69. Thus, the male […]

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The immortal voice: The echoing memories of KL Saigal on his birth anniversary

KL Saigal April 4, 2020

Guest article by Sharad Dutt as a tribute to KL Saigal on his 116th birth anniversary (4 April 1904 to 18 January 1947) (KL Saigal is the most towering actor-singer of our films. He was a part of our daily lives courtesy Radio Ceylon which made it a daily ritual to end its programme on […]

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Best songs of 1946: Wrap Up 1

KL Saigal-GM Durrani-Surendra-Rafi-Mukesh June 26, 2019

And the SoY Award for the Best Male Playback Singer goes to? Now we come to category-wise discussion of the best songs, following from my overview post on the Best songs of 1946. Understandably, the total number of MEMORABLE SONGS mentioned in the post (81) was the lowest so far in the series on year-wise […]

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Best non-film songs of KL Saigal

KL Saigal January 18, 2012

A tribute on his death anniversary January 18 If you grew up in the radio era and had an ear for music, Saigal-song-a day was a daily ritual – Radio Ceylon would end their programme of old film songs with a Saigal song every morning at 7.57 AM. So by the time I reached college […]

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New Theatres’ romance with Prem

Thumbnail image for New Theatres’ romance with Prem May 29, 2011

Best love songs of Vintage Era I have been in the New Theatres mood since I wrote my last post on Pankaj Mullick. BN Sircar established New Theatres in Calcutta in 1931, i.e. the same year the first talkie Alam Ara was released in Bombay. Music has been an integral part and a defining feature […]

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