KL Saigal

Best songs of 1940: Wrap Up 1

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 an end, and another was showing its sprouts. There was also a churning in established studios like the Bombay Talkies – because of the death of its owner Himanshu Rai; and the New Theatres of Kolkata, which was struck by a fire destroying most of their prints. However, these tragedies did not deter them from creating some great films and outstanding music. I have written about the general scenario in my Overview Post of the best songs in 1940.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Best Songs of 1944: Wrap Up 1

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 solos were about 16% of the total songs in the year. In my shortlist of 80/81 Memorable Songs in the year (one song had a female, and a duet version), the number of male solos is proportionately more at 19, accounted for by the following 9 singers:

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

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 old film songs with a Saigal song at 7.57 am. He has been omnipresent on SoY too, though without the need for that kind of formal reminder. It is amazing that with less than 200 songs in all languages, including film and non-film songs, he has achieved such immortal fame. I wanted to have a post on him in the SoY’s tenth year, and no one could do it better than Sharad Dutt, a recognised expert on Saigal and old film music in general.

There is hardly a serious follower of old film music who is unaware of Sharadji. His body of work is enormous. Besides a biography of KL Saigal, he has written an authoritative biography of Anil Biswas, and he is about to complete the biography of the lyricist Shailendra. He has made over three hundred short films on literary and music personalities. After 50 years in the AIR and Doordarshan he joined a private TV channel where he hosted a number of interviews. Currently, he is engaged in video documentation of old film music, and he writes a weekly column every Sunday in the Millennium Post on old film music.

I am very grateful that in spite of his busy schedule Sharadji agreed to write this tribute to Saigal on his 116th birth anniversary. – AK)

KL Saigal_courtesy Kidar SharmaFrom 040404 to 040420 one hundred sixteen years have passed. On 4th April 1904 a couple, Tehsildaar Amarchand and Kesar Kaur, were blessed with a son in Jammu. Everybody was joyous in the family. They named him Kundanlal Saigal. Saigal became the greatest singer of the 20th century. Today is hundred sixteenth birth anniversary of the legendary singer KL Saigal, and I am very happy to pay my tribute to him on Songs of Yore. (Wikipedia and many sites mention 11 April 1904 as Saigal’s birthday, but Sharadji is sure from his research that it is 4th April. – AK)

Saigal’s mother Kesar Kaur took the newly born baby boy to her spiritual Guru Pir Salman Yusuf. Pir Baba blessed her son and prophesied that the child would become a reputed singer. When Saigal grew up he started singing bhajan, kirtans at his home with his mother. His father Amarchand was dead against music but he allowed his son to act in Ram Leela. Saigal used to play the role of Sita in Deewan Mandir Rang Manch (now Sanatan Dhram Natak Samaj, Jammu). Once his act of Sita in Ashok Vatika was so spectacular that the audience wanted an encore of the same scene which was re-enacted.

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Best songs of 1946: Wrap Up 1

And the SoY Award for the Best Male Playback Singer goes to?

KL Saigal-Durrani-Surendra-Rafi-Mukesh-1946Now 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 reviews. Since we are going back year to year, this is a function of entering into less and less familiar territory. The male solos in the list were 22 in number, divided among the following singers:

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Best non-film songs of KL Saigal

A tribute on his death anniversary January 18

KL SaigalIf 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 I had fully soaked in Saigal magic. Later when I came across my first Saigal LP, all its iconic songs from films like Devdas, Street Singer, Chandidas, President etc I knew by heart. Yet the song which kept me spellbound and moved me like never before was a non-film song Jhulna jhulao ri. Soon after a friend lent me a whole cassette of his non-film songs. Its anchor song Main baithi thi in two parts mesmerised me. One after the other a whole new world of non-film songs of Saigal opened before me, some of which sounded quite like his film-songs, some others were very different, but they seemed to reach where his film songs could not.

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New Theatres’ romance with Prem

Best love songs of Vintage Era

New Theatres 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 of our films ever since. And so it has been with the New Theatres as well. It is also not surprising that love has been the dominant theme of our songs. But the New Theatres took love to entirely unexpected heights. It was not merely a matter of semantics that pyar, mohabbat, ishq for them was Prem or Preet. It also denoted for them something deeply spiritual, other-worldly and supremely blissful.

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