Music And Movies

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, ...

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...