Music And Movies

Akkineni Nageswar Rao passed away in the early hours of today succumbing to cancer. He is an actor whose memory will always be cherished by those who have watched his movies. ANR, as he was fondly called, along with N T Rama Rao was one of two super stars from 50 to the 70s. ANR was known for his sensitive portrayals and his tragic roles while N T R was known for his mythological roles in his initial days and for his loud roles in later days. The truth is both were equally at ease be it a comic role, mythological role, tragic role or a standard dancing hero role yet they got slotted into certain roles. Many of the roles Nageswar Rao played had a pan Indian appeal. Ofcourse he acted mostly in Telugu films and venturing once in a while to Tamil. The image of him as a tragic hero was cemented early in his career when he did 'Devadas'. Many believe that it was the best Devadas they have seen on screen. Better than Saigal, Dilip Kumar or Krishna (who remade it again in Tel...

Continuing from last post where we saw the Carnatic great M L Vasanthakumari sing a film song, this post will have us listening to the redoubtable Amir Khan singing a film song. I knew that Amir Khan had sung in Baiju Bawra and had written about it in a post long time back. I did not know he has sung in this film called 'Khudito Pashan'.  Wiki says that this is a 1960 movie directed by Tapan Sinha. The music is by the sarod maestro, Ali Akbar Khan. So you have Amir Khan singing for Ali Akbar Khan. A nice combination. This song is based on the raga Bageshree. There is a commercially available recording of Amir Khan singing Bageshree, which is top class. Here, even though the song is only around 3 mins in duration, he paints a lovely picture of Bageshree. A nice tune by Ali Akbar Khan and sung wonderfully by Amir Khan. Pratima Bandopadyay joins for a couple of lines. Enjoy the song: Staying on the same theme, I will put up one more song. This time it is a song of Kishor...