Music And Movies

Here is the link to read all parts of this series. Kishore Kumar had tremendous respect for Lata and used to call her Lata Didi. They knew each other from the late 40s, having sung together for Kemchand Prakash and Anil Biswas in the late 40s and early 50s. The story of their meeting is funny, and Lata had narrated it in many places. Kishore's trajectory as a singer was quite different from Lata's, even though he had been singing since 1940s. Initially, Kishore Kumar wanted to be an actor. Most music directors of those times saw him as Ashok Kumar's younger brother who wanted to act, and not many saw him as a singer. His lack of formal training in Hindustani classical music was seen as a handicap, and through the 1950s and most part of the 1960s, he ended up singing only for the films he acted in and the films of Dev Anand.  Dada Burman and Dev Anand had a lot of confidence in Kishore's abilities as a singer, but most other music directors preferred Rafi. Also, during t...

Here is the link to read all parts of this series. Lata Mangeshkar and Rafi were probably seen as a natural pairing due to their being the most in-demand female and male voices, respectively, and also because both were trained in classical music. Their approach to music was different, though. Rafi believed in emoting very explicitly with his voice, while Lata preferred her voice to be under her control all the time. Rafi's tone, too, was different from Lata's. His vocal modulations had a more in-your-face attitude compared to Lata's polished performance in this aspect. Of course, the way they sang depended quite a bit on who the composer was, but overall these can be seen as the major difference in their approach.  Lata and Rafi had some differences in the early 1960s and didn't sing together for a few years. During the rift, Rafi was mostly accompanied by Suman Kalyanpur instead of Lata, while Lata was accompanied by Mahendra Kapoor during that time. (I would say that ...

Here is the link to read all parts of this series. In this part and the next couple of parts of this series, we will talk about Lata's partnership with famous male singers: Mukesh, Rafi and Kishore. We start with the partnership of Lata and Mukesh. It is very difficult to find two contrasting voices than Lata and Mukesh. Mukesh is a mystery for many people. People accuse him of slipping from the 'sur' sometimes; he is accused of being nasal, and it is well known that his vocal range was limited. He also had the reputation of being suitable only for singing sad songs. Lata's voice was in contrast to that of Mukesh. Her range was incredible, her voice dripped honey, and she could sing any song that the music director threw at her. There is another important contrast between the two. For many music directors, Lata was the first choice. Whereas a lot of music directors were not keen on working with Mukesh, maybe they felt his range was too limited for them. So you don't...

Her is the link to read all parts of this series The 1980s, in my opinion, is when Hindi film music started sliding downwards with respect to quality. The arrival of Amitabh Bachan and the angry young man made the hero the main draw and not the music, unlike the time of Rajesh Khanna, where his romantic image was kept alive by music. Not just this factor, but R D Burman slowly losing his commercial edge, and the emergence of Bappi Lahari and Disco music led to melody taking a back seat. Though there were a lot of 'hit' songs in those times, as they are during any phase, their staying power has been limited.  This was also the time when new female voices started entering the field, and slowly, the need to have Lata in their movies was declining. Lata's voice, too, was undergoing a change, and it was not suited for the disco songs of that era. Asha Bhosle, Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy, and Anuradha Paudwal got to sing a lot of songs in the decade of 80s. Lata slowly decr...

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links The end of the 60s pointed towards the change in guard regarding Hindi film music. Newer music directors like R D Burman, Laxmikanth Pyarelal, and Kalyanji Anandji started giving big hits. The old guard that included Naushad, Shankar Jaikishen, and O P Nayyar, among others, was starting to fade. Only S D Burman was able to hold his fort during this time.  Another important development took place during the end of the 60s. The actor called Rajesh Khanna was catapulted into stardom almost overnight due to the success of his movie, 'Aradhana.' In this movie, whose songs were humungous hits, both Mohd Rafi - the dominant male singer of those times - and Kishore Kumar sang songs for Rajesh Khanna. Yet, the public loved Kishore's voice for Rajesh Khanna, and that led to Kishore replacing Rafi as the most in-demand male playback singer. The other association that became a super duper hit was between R D Burman and Ki...

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...

  (SPB with Salman Khan) ( You can read the earlier parts here:  Part 1 ,  Part 2 ,  Part 3 ,  Part 4 ,  Part 5 ,  Part 6  ,  Part 7 ,  Part 8 ,   Part 9  & Part 10 ) K. Balachander made 'Maro Charitra' in Telugu and it became a super hit, not only in Andhra Pradesh but also in Madras. The songs of MSV were top class. He had used four female singers in it. Susheela, Janaki, Vani Jayaram and L R Eswari. The lone male singer was SPB. Balachander now wanted to remake this in Hindi. Since MSV was not well known in Hindi, he had to chose a popular Hindi music director. He chose Laxmikant Pyarelal as the music director. Balachander wanted SPB to sing for Kamal in Hindi as well. Balachander had always been a great supporter of SPB. Over and above that since Kamal was playing a role of a Tamil boy who did not know Hindi, he probably felt that SPB would be the apt singer. The only problem was the LP, as Laxmikanth Payarelal were kn...

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...