Hemant Kumar’s solo songs under ‘other’ batons

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav in the series of Centenary Celebrations of Hemant Kumar (16 June 1920-26 September 1989)

(SOY has launched a befitting Centenary Celebration of the much loved music and film personality Hemant Kumar, starting with N Venkataraman’s foundational article Hemantayan Part 1 on his Birth Centenary, 16 June 2020, which covered his life and career up to 1960. Venkataramanji anchored the post-1960 till the end part of his career with Hemantayan Part 2, published on his 31st Remembrance Day, 26 September 2020. In tandem with that, Ashok M Vaishnav took a closer look at Hemant Kumar’s career as music director with three articles covering his female playback singers, male playback singers and duets.

In the course of his exploration Ashokji felt that with this series, Hemant Kumar’s songs as a singer need a detailed separate post. His songs under his own baton are quite well-known. His songs under the baton of S D Burman and Ravi have been covered earlier in the series on these music directors. Ashokji never chooses the easy path. He expressed a desire to write another article on his songs under the baton of other music directors. I am happy to present it in this calendar year to round off the grand Centenary celebrations of Hemant Kumar. Thank you Ashokji. – AK)

Hemant Kumar with Kishore KumarEvery major article written on Hemant Kumar, invariably runs into a debate of his being more a complete music director or a singer. The discussion invariably moves to the question – whether he sang better under his own music direction or under the direction of ‘other’ music directors. As can be expected, most of such discussions end with the participants divided equally on either side. However, one view which emerges more often than not is that what he lacked in the range as a singer, he was able to more than compensate that by creating songs that other singers could do justice to. Moreover, it is also very commonly agreed that even when he had had some of the most outstanding songs under ‘other’ batons, use of his range as a singer was utilised in a very narrow band by other music directors.

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Best songs of 1945: Wrap Up 3

And the Award for the Best Duet goes to?

Best films of 1945_Tadbir-Kurukshetra-Village Girl-Zeenat-Badi Ma-Pahli NazarWe have seen in some years that either male solos or female solos may be tepid, but duets never disappoint. That has to do with combinatorics. If there are, say, 3 prominent male singers and 4 female singers in a year, there are 12 possible voice combinations. Even if the music directors use half of them, you get six interesting combinations of singers for duets. This adds extra colour. It also makes some difference whether the male or the female singer takes the lead. Another dimension is added if it is a male-male or a female-female duet, or it becomes a triad or multiple-singer song which I have been treating as a duet.

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Mughals Engulf Bollywood

Guest article by DP Rangan as a tribute to the Last Mughal Emporer Bahadur Shah Zafar II on his 158th Remembrance Day (24 October 1775 – 7 November 1862)

(Mughal period has fascinated our film makers from the very early days – not to make ‘historical’ films as we understand by the term, but to weave tales of romance and legend, mostly apocryphal, in the backdrop of grandeur, opulent sets, colourful costumes, songs and dance, and flowery Urdu language. Even over 260 years of the de facto demise and 160 years of official end of the Mughal Empire has not dimmed the romance for the period.

When did the Mughal empire actually end? The real answer is it was a painful slow death for over a century, shrinking from a large swathe of Indian territory extending up to Afghanistan, to just Delhi, and finally the Lal Quila, at the time of the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II, who lived on the pension paid by the British. So we can say the empire ended with the arrest of the last emperor on 20 September 1857, after which he was exiled to Rangoon where he died on 7 November 1862. India was the crown jewel for the British, and too valuable to be left to the rule by the East India Company. If you want to be legalistic, the Queen’s Proclamation dated 1 November 1858 brought India under the direct Rule by the British Crown.

DP Rangan’s range of interest is amazing. From objects of nature, to variety of themes like cycle, tonga, horses, to film stars, now he writes on the films and songs around Mughal rulers. You may scoff at the authenticity of their history, but the songs the music directors created were everlasting. Mr Rangan selects some of the best songs for the post.

Bahdaur Shah Zafar was ‘technically’ the Last Mughal. Though only a nominal emperor, he fostered a multi-cultural and multi-religious society around him, and presided over a court having great Urdu poets like Zauq, Ghalib, Momin and Dagh. At a time fraught with inter-faith tension and mistrust, it is befitting to pay a tribute to him with this article on his 158th Remembrances Day. Thanks a lot Mr Rangan. – AK)

Bahdurshah ZafarIndian subcontinent since time immemorial has had her belly exposed to all sorts of invaders through Khyber and Bolan pass. The petty kingdoms nestled around this vulnerable locality were too busy fighting each other, and failure to present a united front against aggressors from further North eventually cost them dear. This was checkmated during periods of great empires like Kanishka, Gupta and Harshvardhan. The power vacuum thereafter led to a resurgence of such invasions. Repeated invasion and retreats with booty led to colonization subsequently. Delhi sultanates were first such settlements ruling over a big territory in the North. With the proselytizing Islam as their creed they sought to swell their numbers from among the conquered people. A delicate balance prevailed between Islam and the native faith.

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Hemant Kumar’s Hindi Duet Compositions

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav in the continuing series of Hemant Kumar’s Centenary (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989)  celebrations

(The Grand Centenary Celebrations of Hemant Kumar were set off by N Venkataraman’s omnibus article Hemantayan Part 1 on his Birth Centenary 16 June 2020, which covered his early life and his career up to 1960. He completed his comprehensive overview with its Part 2 on his Remembrance Day 26 September 2020. In parallel Ashok M Vaishnav offered to take a closer look at Hemant Kumar’s career as a music director in Hindi films. He has already written on his songs for female playback singers and male playback singers. Ashokji completes his micro view of Hemant Kumar as a music director with this third article in the series in which he covers his duet compositions. Ashokji, characteristically, covers some unknown songs; his logic being that everyone knows his famous songs. This also gives an opportunity to the readers to post some obvious songs which are missing here.

Ashokji is a systematic researcher. That comes from his engineering and management background. After retirement he now freelances as management training professional. I convey my thanks to Venkataramanji and Ashokji for their series of articles which is such a befitting tribute to Hemant Kumar who was a great artiste and a great human being. – AK)

Quantitatively, duets are known to constitute a smaller share of Hindi Film Songs, as compared to the solo songs. However, it is well acknowledged that duets have an important place in the portfolio of any music director and singer. Musicologists will have their own detailed treatise to address the intricacies of duet compositions. They may also have different analyses of why one duet is better than the other or which duet has experimented successfully or otherwise with some out-of-the-box experiments. However, as an amateur listener of Hindi Film Songs, my inherent bias towards duets invariably is reflected in the joy of listening to a song composed as (MF) duet. In that context duets of Hemant Kumar have their own charm – be it an another music director composition or a Hemant Kumar’s own composition. Certainly, there should be no comparison between Hemant Kumar’s duets composed by other music directors and the ones that he composed himself. They are two different worlds and must be enjoyed as such.

Presently, we will focus our attention to the duets composed by Hemant Kumar in Hindi films

Hemant Kumar_Duets singers

Hemant Kumar has composed music in 54 Hindi films, spanning around 418 songs. Of these, 9 films (covering ~66 songs) had no duets. From the rest of the songs that Hemant Kumar has composed, duets have a little more than the one fourth share. These comprise MM and MF duets and triads+ where he is a singer and music director, and FF and MF duets and triads+ which have only ‘other singers’, in nearly 53:47 proportion. Well, well, it seems the statistical analysis of Hemant Kumar composed songs itself seems to be a full-fledged subject that can be discussed as interestingly as listening to his songs, and hence better be left for the more competent people to address.

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Salt, pepper and foods

Celebrating the World Food Day (16 October)

Salt, pepper and foodYou would hardly find a dining table in homes or restaurants anywhere in the world which does not have salt and pepper shakers. Without salt and pepper the food would be without any taste. These have also acquired a venerable place in our history. ‘Namak Satyagrah’ or Dandi March (1930) was one of the three major movements launched by Gandhiji in India’s freedom struggle. The history of pepper is older than the history of India; there is archaeological evidence of people using pepper in 2000 BC in India. From here it went all over the world through trade from ancient times. Pepper also became a curse, because some European traders in pepper gradually became our rulers for about two centuries.

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Best songs of 1945: Wrap Up 2

And the Award for the Best Female Playback Singer goes to?

Noorjehan-Amirbai KarnatakiWhen Noorjehan visited India in 1982 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Indian talkie movies, one of the songs she chose to sing was Baithi hun teri yaad ka lekar ke sahara from Village Girl (1945), composed by Shyam Sundar, to a deafening applause. She was the dominant female playback singer of the year, having memorable songs from Badi Ma, Village Girl and Zeenat. Her first superhit Hindi film was Khandan (1942), followed by some more successful films in which she was the lead actor-singer, such as Naadan (1943), Dost and Lal Haveli (1944). Thus by 1945 she was among the leading actor-singers of the era.

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Hemantayan – Part 2

A tribute to Hemant Kumar on his 31st Remembrance Day (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989) in his Birth Centenary year by guest author N Venkataraman

(N Venkataraman launched the Centenary Celebration of Hemant Kumar with his superb article Hemantayan Part 1 on his Birth Centenary, 16 June 2020. This gave a comprehensive overview of Hemant Kumar’s early life, his rise as a singer and composer of great repute in Hindi and Bengali films and non-film songs, up to 1960.

In this second and concluding part of his tribute, Venkatarmanji carries on his excellent work and covers his remaining career post-1960. The special aspect of this article is his focus on Hemant Kumar’s forays into production of films, which is not highlighted much as his heavenly voice left such a powerful impact. This aspect is also important because it became Hemant Kumar’s hubris, sucking him into deep financial troubles. But the multifarious talent that he was, he was able to come out of it as he had become an icon in Bengali music as a singer and composer. That became his main arena, where he was the Monarch.

This two-part tribute by Venkataramanji is the most comprehensive you can find on any blog. It is not only a chronicle of Hemant Kumar’s life and his professional achievements, it also provides insight into the ecosystem of Hindi and Bengali films of the era, his strength of character, simplicity and generosity and also his foibles, and his ups and downs. We are passionately fond of his singing and music direction, our awareness being primarily limited to Hindi. Thanks to Venkataramanji now we know that Hemant Kumar was much larger than that.  We can’t thank Venkataramanji enough for this. – AK)

Hemant Kumar 1“It was now time to build up on this success and reputation. Was he able to consolidate his position and career in Bombay and also in Calcutta? I will leave that for another post, the second part of this write-up. I would be covering his career post-1960 in the second part of my article”.

I had concluded the first part, Hemantayan – Part1 with the above lines.

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Hemant Kumar’s male playback singers

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav in the series of centenary tributes to Hemant Kumar (b. 16 June 1920 – d. 26 September 1989)

(Hemant Kumar’s centenary celebration was set off with an excellent article by N Venkataraman, ‘Hemantayan Part 1’, in which he wrote about his family origin, early life, and his career up to 1960. Venkataramanji would write his second and last part on Hemant Kumar’s Remembrance Day, 26 September, covering his post-1960 career.

Ashok M Vaishnav has a great interest in delving deep into film songs and present micro-analysis on various parameters. He very kindly offered to supplement Venkataramanji’s two-part overview with some articles going into Hemant Kumar’s career on various parameters in greater detail. Ashokji’s first article in the series was on Hemant Kumar’s female playback singers. in his second article he covers his male singers. This article is another evidence of Ashokji’s perseverance in going deep and wide.

Ashokji is an engineer by profession. After retirement, he is engaged in management training. I thank him for his efforts to make this series of tribute so befitting the respect Hemant Kumar commands. – AK)

Hemant Kumar_Manna Dey-Rafi-Kishore KumarEvery time the topic of Hemant Kumar’s Hindi Film songs in male voice comes up, the discussion usually gets marooned in the question – was he a great composer who also sang well or was he a great singer who also made some memorable music?

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N Datta: The Third Musketeer for Asha Bhosle

Guest article by Hans Jakhar wishing Asha Bhosle (b. 8 September 1933) a very happy 87th birth anniversary and also greeting the unlucky genius N Datta

(By now we all know that Asha Bhosle is the most recorded singer, and has sung far more songs than her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar. Yet Lata Mangeshkar came to be acknowledged as the apogee of female playback singing in the Golden Era. She was the singer of choice of every music director for their best and most complex compositions, except a handful of MDs for whom Asha Bhosle was the main singer. N Datta is one of them, and what superb songs he gave for her as well as other singers! He was an unlucky genius. When Hans Jakhar wrote on Asha Bhosle’s last birth anniversary on her songs by Ravi, Arvinder Sharma commented that her predominance in N Datta’s music is relatively even more pronounced than Ravi.

I have no hesitation in admitting that I am an unabashed Lata-partisan, and that may be reflecting on SoY too, but fortunately we have a large band of Asha Bhosle fans. Hans Jakhar is the undisputed flag-bearer of this brigade which provides more than balance if there is any hint of bias on the other side.

But in my defence, in the very early stage of this blog, I wrote my first post on Asha Bhosle on her 78th birth anniversary nine years ago. Thereafter, I have written a number of posts on her songs by different music directors with great respect, because those songs are very special to me. Hans, in this article, has fairly acknowledged it. N Datta’s songs for Asha Bhosle are very dear to me, yet if someone has to write on this combination, no one could do it better than Hans. I am happy that he accepted my request to write this tribute to them as our greetings to Asha Bhosle on her 87th birth anniversary.

Hans brings his legal and commerce degree and long working with the government to full use in writing on film music, too, with his mastery over data and reasoning. It gives me great pleasure to present his third guest article for SoY which has all the hallmark of his sharp skills. – AK)

N Datta-Asha BhosleThe year 1955 was a special year for Asha Bhosle. Two composers who were inclined to use her more than any other female singers came out of the stable of pro-Lata Lata Mangeshkar composers and straight-away started using her as the main female singer. One of them, Ravi, was discussed last year. The other was N Datta who was an assistant to SD Burman. In the same year, the third pro-Asha composer who later became only Asha, OP Nayyar also had a big success with her in Baap Re Baap which, though not a block-buster, was quite a successful film. Success of the songs like ‘Raat rangili chamke taare‘ and ‘Piya piya piya mora jiya pukare‘ gave him the confidence to use her extensively, especially after moving out of Guru Dutt films. At a personal level, her biggest achievement was recording 300+ songs, which no singer had yet achieved.

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Hemant Kumar’s Female Playback Singers

Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav in the series of centenary tributes to Hemant Kumar (b. 16 June 2020 – d. 26 September 1989)

(Is Hemant Kumar a major singer or a music director? For his fans his mesmerising singing overshadows his contribution as a music director. Ashok M Vaishnav is known for going deep into data analysis and classification – SoY regulars have seen his perseverance in his mega-series, Multiple version songs. Ashokji plans to write a series of guest articles on Hemant Kumar’s various facets as music director, as a part of his centenary celebrations, which were set off brilliantly by N Vankataraman’s outstanding tribute, titled ‘Hemantayan – Part 1’, on his Birth Centenary, 16 June 2020.

Venkataramanji is planning his Part 2 on 26 September 2020 to coincide with Hemant Kumar’s death anniversary. His scheme, as the readers must have noticed, is to divide Hemant Kumar’s life and career in two parts chronologically – the first part going up to 1960 – taking a comprehensive overview of his career as a music director and singer in Hindi, Bengali and other languages, as well as his non-film songs.

It was very kind of Ashokji to offer on his own to supplement Venkataramanji’s two-part overview with some articles going into more detail on Hemant Kumar’s career on various parameters. Here is the first article of his planned series, on his female playback singers (in Hindi films). Since I have written on his songs for Lata Mangeshkar long ago, Ashokji only mentions her few songs, focussing more on his wide range of other female singers. He consciously chooses less familiar songs as a prudent policy.

Many readers have rightly observed that SoY is blessed with very generous guest writers. We are all lucky. Thank you Ashokji for your guest article. – AK)

 

Hemant Kumar with his female singers 2

Hemant Kumar (16-6-1920 | 26-9-1989) had already shown flare for music composition from his early childhood. Even though his formal career commenced as a singer, his talents as a composer also did not have to wait longer to get formal recognition. Of course, in so far as Hindi Films is concerned, the first ever film for which he got to compose the music was a decade after he sang his first film song. He then went on to compose music for 50+ films for the next 27 years.

(Note: Many sites mention film ‘Irada’ (1944) as his debut as a singer in Hindi films. However, it is now generally accepted that his first song was ‘Aankhon ki oat jo rahta tha’ in the film ‘Meenakshi’ (1942). – AK)

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