And the Award for the Best Female Singer goes to?
The year 1940 also shows preponderance of Female Solos over Male Solos in total numbers, in line with the long-term trend, as evident in the list of MEMORABLE SONGS in the Overview Post. But there the comparison ends. Music is never about total numbers, it is about overall impact. If you see the Wrap Up 1 about the best male solos of 1940, the year witnessed overwhelming dominance of the New Theatres stalwarts, KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick, and KC Dey. Their songs are top of the recall.
Continuing the series of tributes to RD Burman with his best songs for Rafi on the latter’s 45th Remembrance Day
RD Burman composed over 125 songs for Rafi. He was friends with Kishore Kumar, and their personal and musical temperaments matched. Plus, post-Aradhana (1969) an era changed, and Kishore Kumar’s vocals seemed to be transformed to fit the new youthful Phenomenon, Rajesh Khanna. Kishore Kumar was the new Rafi with most big music directors adapting to suit his style. That reflects in the number of about 500 songs RD Burman composed for Kishore Kumar. Considering that Kishore Kumar in his entire career sang only 55% of the songs sung by Rafi, this is even more skewed.
Guest article by Dr Rajesh Deshpande continuing the series on tributes to RD Burman
(When I embarked upon celebrating 2025 as the year of RD Burman, I was aware of my limitations. The blog’s focus area was 1930s through 60s, whereas RD Burman was clearly a man of the 1970s onwards. I was deeply into the music of the earlier era, and couldn’t relate much to the later period. In other words, I didn’t know much about the music of the post-1970s. It was quite clear that I would need help from the readers more au fait with music of the 1970s. Dr Deshpande’s name came to my mind who is very up-to-date with RD Burman’s music. I was happy when he responded positively to my request whether he would be interested in writing a couple of articles on him. With this article he is debuting as one of the distinguished guest writers for Songs of Yore. This debut article gives an excellent summary of the dominant position of RD Burman in the 1970s.
By profession, Dr Deshpande is a pathologist with blood transfusion as his speciality. He is currently in-charge of Medical Affairs for Asia Pacific and International Region in Fresenius Kabi, a healthcare MNC. But, more importantly, he is a film music man. He is a regular contributor to HFGK and works closely with Har Mandir Singh ‘Hamraj’. It is my pleasure to welcome him as a guest author to SOY. – AK)
It is indeed a privilege to write a post for SoY. AKji asked me if I could write an article on RD Burman. It would be my first time to write a full non-medical article for a blog but I thought why not. I have enjoyed Hindi films and songs right from my childhood and RD Burman’s music was an integral part of my growing up in the 70s. After all, the Pancham sound was at the peak of its success in the 70s. This decade remains my favourite and I consider early 70s as part of the golden period of Hindi film music as much as the late 60s. These, and below are my personal thoughts to which others may not necessarily agree.
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.
Continuing the series of tributes to RD Burman remembering him on his 86th Birth Anniversary (27 June 1939 – 4 January 1994) with my favourite songs sung by him
RD Burman was renowned as a music director. He is credited with changing the way music was made. He was fascinated by different streams of music: Latino, Caribbean, African, Jazz, and he experimented with different types of sound and tried to assimilate these in his music. This aspect of his music comes out clearly in the opening article of the series, on 4.1.2025. He was not rated much as a singer, unlike his father SD Burman, or other Bengali singers like Hemant Kumar or Kishore Kumar. But there was something unique in his voice which was a reflection of his personality. Some songs were very apt for his voice and those songs achieved a great deal of popularity. In some songs, he added his voice for special effect, and in many songs RD Burman’s voice created a magical impact. I have not selected the songs chronologically, but in order of my preference.
Guest article by Ashok M Vaishnav
(SOY regulars are aware that this blog is celebrating 2025 as the year of RD Burman with some contribution from me and some guest articles. Among guest authors, our veteran Ashok M Vaishnav has taken up the cudgels with his first article in the series with RD Buman’s improvisations with rhythm instruments. Ashokji has done a long series on Arrangers and Musicians. That makes him eminently suitable to write on RD Burman’s orchestration improvisations. This is his second article focussing on RD Burman’s improvisations with string instruments.
Ashokji has been an engineer and after retirement, he is a freelance management consultant based out of Ahmedabad. I can’t help mentioning he was recently undergoing some medical procedures. As soon as he was in a position to write he is out with this post. Thank you Ashokji for your love for this blog and this excellent article. – AK)
R D Burman’s initial films – Chhote Nawab (1961), Bhoot Bangla (1965), Teesara Kaun (1965) and Pati Patni (1966) – seemed to mould his music into prevalent pattern of 50s – a mix of Indian classical music with shades of regional folk music. However, destiny seemed to have charted a different trajectory for him. The music that made R D Burman’s own space secure and respected was that of Teesri Manzil (1966). The success of Teesri Manzil and its music permanently branded R D Burman as the music director with western music domination even when he continued to give some excellent classical and folk based music.
Fifteen has a nice ring to it. However, the beginning of the 15th year gave me a little concern. With the introduction of a new law in place of the Indian Penal Code, Taazirat-e-Hind Dafa 302 in our court room movies would be a thing of the past. Because there would be no Taazirat-e-Hind on the statutes. And there would be no Dafa 302, or maqtool’s body being dragged in the court or tumbling out of a wardrobe door either. In those movies the hero, wrongly accused of Dafa 302, used to be acquitted on the basis of Tamaam gawaahon ke bayanat and Vakeele-e-safaai’s daleels, and Memberaan-e-Jury’s opinion. Also gone would be some cultural symbols and songs. However, our parliamentarians were not concerned with that. They were all concerned with protecting our Samvidhan – from the other side. We saw in the election campaign competitive ferocity to protect the Constitution. When the parliament convened, there was pandemonium to save the Constitution with everyone waving a copy of the Book. We saw the same ferocity to protect the Constitution by all the parties in some state elections. We must admire the voters that in this mayhem too they are able to elect a winner.
Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar in OP Nayyar centenary series
(Ravindra Kelkar wrote a series of articles on OP Nayyar eight years ago. The grand centenary celebrations of Rafi on SOY inspired Mr Kelkar to mount a similar tribute to OP Nayyar whose centenary is on 16 January 2026. He also offered to write a number of articles culminating on the D-Day. This is Mr Kelkar’s second article in his second innings.
Mr Kelkar had close personal contact with OP Nayyar as his admirer, yet that does not cloud his judgement. Mahendra Kapoor was an important male singer for OP Nayyar in his post-Rafi phase, though Mr Kelkar acknowledges that he was not a match for Rafi. My view is somewhat nuanced. A famous song by any singer gets etched in our memory, and it is difficult to imagine it in any other voice, even in a superior singer’s voice. That would apply to some of Mahendra Kapoor’s songs by Ravi and OP Nayyar, and I have written posts on my favourite songs long ago. Mr Kelkar takes a more comprehensive look at OP Nayyar-Mahendra Kapoor combination.
Mr Kelkar has done Masters in Statistics and Computer Science, and he was an IT professional. Now retired, he is based out of Pune. Thank you Mr Kelkar for another nice article. – AK)
In my last series on OP Nayyar (6 posts in total) I had not written on this topic. I am making amends by writing this post. On the SOY blog, we already have quite a few posts related to Mahendra Kapoor, including one by AK on two songs of this combination, those songs being ‘Tumhara chahanewala’ from the film ‘Kahin Din Kahin Raat’ and ‘Mera pyar wo hai’ from film ‘Ye Raat Phir Na Aayegi’. In the SOY family we have many Mahendra Kapoor admirers. I am impressed by their in-depth knowledge of many obscure and rarely heard Mahendra Kapoor songs. This also means that we need to include Mahendra Kapoor in the category of Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Hemant Kumar, Talat Mehmood, Mukesh and Manna Dey. The Mahendra Kapoor and Ravi combination is very popular thanks to BR Chopra and on SOY this aspect is already covered in great detail. But in my view, the quality of OP Nayyar and Mahendra Kapoor songs is even better. Though I am not a Mahendra Kapoor fan as such, I do enjoy listening to many Mahendra Kapoor songs. In my view, he did a very competent job as Rafi’s replacement in OP’s music. But for me, Rafi was in a different class all together. Mahendra Kapoor was a hardworking, sincere singer and did his best in every song that he got to render. He was also a very soft spoken person and never had any ill word for anybody, like his guru Rafi.
Haar Jeet, Sukh Dukh, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham – the two opposite feelings, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternately are so common in real life, we don’t give much thought to it. Even major disasters, terrorist acts do not move us, they are some statistics in news. Except that something so horrific happens that it hits you personally, even though your no near or dear one was affected. Pahalgam was one such incident. One moment you see honeymooning couples taking selfies in different poses, families with small children engaged in fun, frolic and laughter, and the other moment some terrorists swoop down, identify people by their religion, and shoot the menfolk. To the women’s entreaties to kill them also as nothing was left to live for, they said there is no such mercy, go and tell Modi. Our Armed Forces’ retaliatory strike two weeks later gave the victims’ families some solace, but Pakistan chose to escalate. This soon threatened to spiral out of control with geostrategic ramifications till we entered a phase of now-ceasefire, now no-ceasefire.
And the winners are?
This is the transition year between the 1930s and 1940s. This was the year when Himanshu Rai, the founder of Bombay Talkies, passed away. The internecine war in the studio had not yet begun. So Bombay Talkies was going great guns with Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis with films like Aazad, Bandhan with music by Saraswati Devi and Ramchandra Pal. Ramchandra Pal working solo also gave outstanding music for Punarmilan with a great twin song Naacho nacho pyare man ke mor (by Arun Kumar/Snehprabha Pradhan). I don’t know whether it was the first twin song of Hindi films, but I can say without hesitation and disproving my general hypothesis, that both the versions are equally good.
Disaster also struck New Theatres too, which had a huge fire destroying most of their prints. But that didn’t deter them from making some great films with outstanding music: Zindagi with lead actor-singer KL Saigal, and Nartaki with lead actor-singer Pankaj Mullick, both scores composed by Pankaj Mullick, and Haar Jeet, composed by RC Boral.
