Music And Movies

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links In the last episode , we had a look at the milieu of the 1940s Hindi film music and got an idea of who were the major singers of those times. We also got a good idea of the singing style of the 40s. In this part, we look at some of Lata's songs in the 1940s and the partnerships she started building with music directors. In the last part, we saw that Lata got her major breakthrough in Hindi film music in the film 'Majboor'. Ghulam Haider was the music director. This film was released in 1948. Other music directors also started showing interest in her singing that same year. In 1948 and 1949, Lata managed to sing some memorable songs and started a partnership with some legendary music directors. We saw that Kemchand Prakash's 'ayega ayega' from 'Mahal' was Lata's breakthrough song. The song that launched her stardom. This is in the year 1949. In the year, 1948 itself, Kemchand Prakash ma...

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links This series only looks at Lata's Music. We will not be going too much in Lata's biography. (There are enough resources available for that.) To understand what Lata was up against when she entered the industry, it is necessary to have some idea of the Music of those times. Lata's first breakthrough song with Ghulam Haider was in 1948. So let us look first at the female singers of those days and try to get a sense of how they sounded during those times.  The most famous names of those times were Noorjahan, Kushid Bano, Shamshad Begum, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Karnataki, and Rajkumar. Noorjahan was a reigning queen. Noorjahan and Kurshid Bano went to Pakistan after the partition. The others remained in India.  All the above voices were seen as 'strong' voices. Voices with a high volume, some of them had a lot of bass in their voice. The singing was open-throated and, by modern standards, a bit loud. V...