Music And Movies

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...

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links Salil Chaudhary occupies a unique place in the pantheon of great Hindi film music directors. Many of his compositions were different from the regular style of other music directors. His ability to blend Western Classical elements in Indian film songs gave a different flavor to his tunes.  There were also a lot of sudden straight notes in his tunes: those were captivating but would have been a challenge for a singer.  Salil Chaudhary, or Salilda as he was fondly called, and Lata's collaboration produced some amazing gems which are still popular amongst music lovers. (She sang for him both in Hindi and in Bengali, but since I am not conversant with the Bengali songs of Lata, I will restrict myself to Hindi.) Lata was Salilda's preferred female lead singer in Hindi film music. As with other music directors, Lata did immense justice to Salilda's songs as well. Salilda's first Hindi film was Bimal Roy's, ...

  The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links In the last part, we saw the partnership between Lata and C.Ramachandra and the many hits they gave together. Another important music director (duo) who established Lata as the numero uno of Hindi film music singing was the Shankar-Jaikishen duo. Shankar-Jaikishen broke into the Hindi film music world through the movie 'Barsaat.' They then went on to rule the Hindi film music world for over two decades, churning out super hit numbers for many films. They formed successful partnerships with major heroes like Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, and Rajendra Kumar, to name a few. They were the court musicians of RK Films. They withstood competition from music directors like Naushad, C.Ramachandra, O.P.Nayyar, and S.D.Burman to remain in the top slot.  Their association with Lata started from their first film itself. 'Barsaat' was not a major milestone in their career, but the songs of that film became a major milest...

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links When Lata entered the Hindi music field, Anil Biswas was already a well-known music director. 'Kismet', the movie for which he had scored music, is still considered to be one of the biggest hit movies in Hindi Film history. Anil Biswas is credited with bringing in a full orchestra for composing film music. He was the mentor of C.Ramachandra and influenced other music directors like Roshan and Madanmohan. He was also a guide for many singers, including Mukesh and Talat Mohammed. Lata said in one of her interviews that Anilda, as he was lovingly called, taught her a lot of things about singing for films in her early days. He taught her how to hold her breath, at which point in the song, and how to move away from the microphone when taking a breath. He seemed to have taught her a lot about voice modulation as well. His songs, even in the 40s, are quite sophisticated and modern. They demand that the singer modulate hi...