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...

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 No one changed the soundscape of Indian film music more dramatically than R.D. Burman, lovingly called Pancham by his admirers. There were other trendsetters earlier, like C.Ramachandra, O.P. Nayyar, and others, but the impact R.D.Burman had on not just Hindi film music but on Indian film music was an order of magnitude greater than his predecessors. The sound he pioneered was without equal, and suddenly the music of other music directors felt old. R.D. Burman, with his musical intelligence and with inspiration - and sometimes borrowing - from the West, came up with a signature style of his own, which is an influential style even to this day. Though R.D. Burman got his first break in 1961, in the movie 'Chote Nawab,' his initial success came in the later part of the 60s with movies like 'Teesri Manzil' and 'Padosan.' When his partnership with Kishore Kumar was cemented with the rise of Rajesh Khann...

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...