Celebrating with some discovered gems, Jaunpuri, Darbari and Mukhtar Begum
The fifth year of Songs of Yore has been more eventful than any preceding year. The year saw centenaries of four great music personalities – Anil Biswas, Begum Akhtar, Khursheed and Kavi Pradeep (the last one in the current calendar year). We remembered all of them – Anil Biswas in a grand manner, befitting his status as the Bhishm Pitamah of film music, with inaugural post by his daughter, and eight other posts on his combinations with different singers. Coincidentally, he also emerged as the Best Music Director, for 1951, which was reviewed in detail last year. The mega-series on SD Burman also concluded last year, notching up 15 posts in all. Arunji’s guest article on Hindi-Telugu in the meta-series on Multiple Version Songs completed the quartet of South Indian languages. Hindi-Bengali similar songs have many dimensions, some of which had been covered earlier. In the year gone by, SSW made a debut as a guest author with his article on Salil Chaudhary, which is likely to be the beginning of a series on him, as he is one of the most versatile talents in films and music. The Master of Multiple Version Songs, Ashok Vaishnav, resumed his super-fine explorations with songs that have hybrid multiple versions. Subodh kept up his date with his series on classical music, with his article on Pilu.