Music And Movies

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links The later part of the 60s is an important transition era for Hindi film music. This is when new music directors started entering the field and making a name for themselves. The earlier music directors were slowly fading away. By the 1970s, this transition would be fully complete, but the seeds were sown in the late 60s. R D Burman, Laxmikanth Pyarelal, and Kalyanji Anandji - the three music directors who would dominate a large part of the 70s - had their initial success during this time. The music, too, started changing, and Lata had to adapt herself to the new music the newcomers were putting up. Of course, the earlier masters still made good music, but the trend change was in the air. Let me initially talk about Lata and Roshan before moving to the other songs of the second half of the 1960s. Like Madanmohan, whose music we heard earlier, Roshan was a genius when at producing great melodies. Lata had great respect for h...

  The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links Though Lata's first Hindi film song, for Ghulam Haider, was in 1948, by 1950, she had already built a reputation for herself in the film industry. She was slowly becoming the number one female singer, with music directors trusting her to carry the film's music on her frail shoulders. Lata showed that she was ready to take on the responsibility and delivered hit after hit. Anil Biswas was to say, "After Lata entered the field, music directors lost their fear. Now they could compose fearlessly, being confident that Lata would deliver whatever they had conceived." By the time we enter the 1950s, we see Lata was already the emerging star. The 1950s also saw the rise was newer music directors, who would later make a great name for themselves: Madanmohan, Salil Choudhary, Jaidev, S D Burman, and O P Nayyar. The other music directors like Shankar Jaikishen, Roshan, and C Ramachandra, who had started their car...

Rajesh Khanna, the first 'super star' of Hindi films, passed away recently. He was responsible for the pleasant memories of a whole generation. As expected, his passing away made people sad. At the same time it made them nostalgic for those innocent days, when the music was melodious, the singers were titans and then there was the charm and charisma of Rajesh Khanna. There have always been Director-Music Director, Actor-Music Director combinations which have given great music. RajKapoor-Shankar Jaikishan, Vijay Anand - S D Burman, Hrishikesh Mukherjee - R D Burman in the Dir-MD combo and Dev Anand-S D Burman, Shammi Kapoor - Shankar Jaikishan in the Actor - MD combo come to mind immediately. Similarly Rajesh Khanna - R D Burman - Kishore is what comes to mind immediately when one thinks of Rajesh Khanna. While this trio gave us some extraordinary music, I feel Rajesh Khanna inspired other music directors as well to give him the best. Unlike Raj Kapoor or Dev Anand, Raje...

'hiranmayena paatrena satyasa apihitam mukham' says the Isavasya Upanishad. "A golden screen hides the face of the truth". As with all Vedic and Upanishad sayings, a pithy one which gives rise to multiple interpretations. I am reminded of this saying once in a while, especially when I see a Black and White photo of yesteryear actresses. You seem to realize their true beauty in these Black and White photographs. As if the golden screen were pushed away revealing the truth. Ofcourse that is a mushy romantic notion, because lot of people look very good in color photos as well but for some reason the Black and White photo holds our attention a bit longer.  Though I have seen many movies of her in color, it was when I first saw her in Black and White that I appreciated the beauty that was Sharmila Tagore. In our college auditorium, our Film Society had screened 'Apur Sansar', the last of the Apu Trilogy by the great Satyajit Ray. (The trilogy was based on...

It is always interesting to compare and contrast two versions of the same song sung in different languages by different singers. I am not talking about dubbed movies but where the songs were made in each of the language with the same intensity and was a hit in each of these languages. Rafi's "chal ud jaa re panchi' from Bhabi can be contrasted with Ghantasala's rendition of the same song in Telugu, "payaninche o chiluka". (If fans of respective singers are involved in this comparison business it can lead to bloodshed. Just check out the youtube comments for this Telugu song!!)  A movie which moved everyone to tears and made Rajesh Khanna almost a legend was 'Anand'. Other than Rajesh Khanna's acting, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's direction, the film is also known for its superb music. How many films can boast of songs like, 'maine tere liye hi saat rang ke sapne chuni', 'naa jiya laage na', 'zindagi kaisi hai paheli' and the...