Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music, June 2019

Welcome to June 2019 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

We will open the present post with the birthday celebration of SoY –  Songs of Yore completes nine years by sharing some exceptional songs the author came across in the year that was. Here is the one for the quick view –

Diwana Kah Ke Logon Ne Aksar Mujhe Bulaya Hai – Majboor (1964) – Mahendra Kapoor and Lata Mangeshkar – Kalyanji-Anandji – Anand Bakhshi,

Google Doodle on 87^th birthday of Amrish Puri

Memories of Mogambo: Little-Known Stories About the Legendary Amrish Puri – by Ananya Barua – From a lecherous villain to a sphinx-faced guardian of morality, Amrish Puri’s ability to intimidate remains unmatched in Bollywood. But did you know that the talented thespian once worked as an insurance agent?

And now we pick up tributes and memories:

Girish Karnad –

• • The untold story of Girish Karnad – Girish Karnad did not create a spectacle out of his death. He had scripted it that way. …This was not totally unexpected. It was in keeping with Karnad’s unsentimental public persona, and a certain rational, pragmatic pursuance of life, all through its eight decades.

(Photo: India Today Group/Getty Images)

• • Girish Karnad, the Renaissance man of Indian culture, dies at 81 – Salil Tripathi – A playwright, actor, aesthete and classicist, Karnad delved into tradition to understand and explain modernity – The characters Karnad played were progressive, not radical; some of those characters were morally flawed and compromised. Life was not about absolutes; Karnad understood that as human condition. But his commitment to integrity was absolute.
  • Storyteller With A Cause – Girish Karnad – While Girish Karnard’s capability as an actor is well acknowledged, he also emerged as a very impactful storyteller through his art of combining underlined message with an alluring storyline and simultaneously writing award winning books too. Kalpana Swamy recounts one such unusual work of his is 1992 multiple awards winning film Cheluvi, starring Sonali Kulkarni

Actress-singer Ruma Guha Thakurta passes away on 3^rd June,2019 at age of 84. After making her silver screen debut with Hindi film Jwar Bhata in 1944, Ruma Guha Thakurta, a niece of filmmaker Satyajit Ray, went on to star in Bengali movies. Apart from acting, Ruma was a popular playback singer too.

70 years of Shankar-Jaikishnan – Rajgopal Nidamboor – Melody was S-J’s complete existence…The power of their melodies evokes a distinctive feeling, replete with that perpetual velvety touch…There is that innate sense of transcendent particle running through their compositions.

Ilaiyaraaja: Music is more like a spiritual seeking that takes one to unknown levels – S Subhakeerthana – Ilaiyaraaja, who turns 76, gets talking about his early years as a music director and why his tunes have a unique space in the hearts of both commoners and connoisseurs.

Ten of my favourite Rajendra Krishan songs are presented to mark the birth centenary of the lyricist.

Remembering a Forgotten Singer! – Lalita Deulkar – Her voice had the typical tone of vintage era and it was eloquent. Her Hindi pronunciation was also good, if we consider her pure Marathi background and that she had not taken much formal training in music. Her voice could express any emotion very easily and very effectively. If she had continued her singing career, we would have got more opportunities to listen to her songs of different genres.

Hemant Kumar’s duets with ‘other’ singers is a tribute to mark 99^th birth anniversary of the music director -singer – While Lata Mangeshkar personified melody and sweetness with Hemant Kumar, the ‘other’ singers brought their own unique verve and joy, and combining with his deep melodious voice created a different kind of charming effect. Illustrative songs from this list:

Ye Mast Nazar Shokh Ada Kiske Liye Hai – Bandi (1957) – with Geeta Dutt – Hemant Kumar – Prem Dhawan

Ye  Pyar Bhara Dil Hai Mohabbat Ka Khazana  – Yahudi Ki Beti (1956) – with Asha Bhosle – Kamal Mitra – Kaifi Azmi

Shailendra Sharma @ Golden Era of Bollywood has posted following memorial tribute posts:

• • Roop Tera Mastana – The Song that completes 50 Yea…
  • Hemant Kumar-The Romantic Voice of Dev Anand
  • Suraiya- The Top Singing Actress after Independenc…
  • Bharat Bhushan – The Actor Who Gave Many Musical H…
  • Once Indian Cinema was ruled by the Jews
  • Nutan – The Heroine, not allowed to see her own fi…
  • The Magic of Nargis-Raj Kapoor,
  • Raj Khosla- A director with a fantastic ear for mu…
  • When Dilip Kumar Sang his own Song
  • The Story behind the song “Jalte Hain Jiske Liye” …
  • Majrooh Sultanpuri and the Burmans

The Super Hits and the Forgotten Gems: 50 Years of Bappi Lahiri – One tends to overlook the many achievements of the composer Bappi Lahiri, overshadowed as they have been by his ‘Tathaiyya, tathaiyya’ brand of cacophony, his infamous penchant for gold jewellery and his heavily accented Bengali voice. Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri revisits the top 5 bona fide hits (of the many of Bappi Lahiri’s illustrious career) and 5 of the best songs that people have forgotten he had composed.

“Mai Jaan Gayi Tujhe Saiyan”- Kammo, whose first name is Kamarjehan . She got her first chance as solo dancer in Sindabd The Sailor (1952) song Jis Roz Se Hamne Tera Deedar Kiya (Music: Chitragupta- Lyrics: Shyam Hindi). She went on to work for over 60 films in her two decades long career.

RIP, Queen Harish (the World-Famous Rajasthani Folk Artist and “Dancing, Whirling Desert Drag Queen” Who Also Posted Comments on This Blog Close to Twelve Years Ago) – “He was an enhancer of life; investing his heart and soul into every move,” says writer and historian William Dalrymple, who loved watching Queen Harish perform.

June, 2019 episode of Fading Memories, Unforgettable Songs takes up. Dattaram – Haal-e-Dil Hamara Jaane Na.. Ye Bewafa Zamana.  This in continuation to the previous article in 2018 wherein we had covered Dattaram’s songs from 1957 to 1959

And, now commence the posts on other subjects.

The Navketan Ladies – If Dev Anand portrayed characters were mostly those on the fringes of urban society, intrinsically decent, but flawed, morally grey, human, the leading ladies of Navketan were fully fleshed-out characters; they might be the keepers of his characters’ conscience or the beacon of hope, but they got to live finely nuanced lives on screen. Nearly all the heroines in his films were strong, independent women.

The Classical Music Giants contribute to Hindi Cinema – Part I deals with the composers, who originally were related to classical music as a popular instrumentalists or classical vocalist and Part II looks at the contribution of classical vocalists to Hindi films, as a playback singer.

Ten of my favourite tree songs lists the songs with two primary conditions – the tree should be named in the first two lines, and, one song from one species of the tree only. Here are a couple of illustrative songs:

• • More angna mein laaga (Aurat, 1940)
  • Chalo chalo chalein hum babool ke tale (Ali Baba Aur Chaalees Chor, 1954)

We had covered first and second part of the three-part dissertation  Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore. The third part concludes the three-part thesis on chorus songs with the Golden Decade of the 1950s.

Ab Ke Burmans Sawan Mein – The Burmonsoon Songs – Sudheer Kulkarni recollects monsoon songs of SD-RD father son duo.

Flashback series:

• • why you should watch Basu Chatterjee’s Sara Akash – Because it helped bring in a New Wave. And shows a glimpse of what the “Middle Cinema” could have looked like, for bringing formal inventiveness to a story that could have been made into a sweet little tele-drama, because it’s an adaptation of an important Hindi novel – and for a look at the inner life of a young man who has no idea what he wants, for Mani Kaul as an actor – playing almost a dialogue-less role of the elder brother.
  • Reasons to watch the anti-war film Aman (apart from the Bertrand Russell cameo) – Because it’s one of the oddest films of its time, combining surface gloss with a serious, compassionate look at the horrors of nuclear war, For a (possible) glimpse of the teenage Naseeruddin Shah – one of the extras walking alongside a large funeral procession at the end, if only one could spot him!

The continuing story of Kamini Kaushal  – Uday Bhatia –  The 92-year-old actor appears in a small part in ‘Kabir Singh’

Bicycles and Bollywood Songs – Part 1 and Part 2 – Aditi Thakur relives the delights of bicycle rides in Hindi film songs, like, Kaise Bheege Bheege – Apna Ghar (1960) – Mohammad Rafi, Suman Kalyanpur – Ravi – Prem Dhawan

Following the overview article, Best songs of 1946: And the winners are?. , we have also rolled out The Micro View of Best Songs of 1946, beginning with Male Solo songs. Having covered Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, Manna Dey, G M Durrani and Ashok Kumar till now, presently we have taken up solo songs of K L Saigal and then wound up the micro view of male solo songs with MY top Male solo songs. Best Songs of 1946 – Wrap up 1 has gone on to select K L Saigal as the Best Male Singers for 1946 for his three songs – Gham diye mustaqil/ Jab dil hi toot gaya/ Ae dil-e-beqaraar jhoom.  I have collected all the posts for Male solo songs @ Male Solo Songs  for ease of reading and downloading.We have then commenced micro view of Female Solo Songs for 1946 with Suraiya and Shamshad Begum, Part 1.

To end the present post with a few songs of Mohammad Rafi, each one of which basically has a link with the topics discussed in the present post, we have picked up:.

More Raja Ho.. Le Chal Nadiya Ke Par – Nadiya Ke Par (1948) – C Ramchandra –

Masoom Chehra Ye Qatil Adayein Ke Bemot Mare Gaye Ham Bechare – Dil Tera Diwane (1962) – With Lata Mangeshkar -Shankar Jaikishan – Hasrat Jaipuri

Mere Junglee Kabutar – Ek Kali Muskayi (1968) Madan Mohan – Rajendra Krishna

Iss Vishal Dharati Par Chahe Rahein Kahin Ham Sathi – Love in Canada (1979) – with Hemant Kumar  – Hemant Kumar – Yogesh

Congress Ko Vote Do – NFS – Shankar Jaikishan – Kazi Saleem

This song was recorded for All India Congress Committee, New Delhi.

I earnestly solicit your inputs for further broad-basing our cache for the content for our carnival of blogs on the Golden Era of Hindi film music.

Disclaimer: This monthly series of posts is my best-effort-based compilation of posts on Hindi film songs that I normally visit regularly. As I record my sincere thanks to all the original creators of these posts, any other posts that I have nor covered herein shows my lack of awareness of existence of such posts and is by no means any disrespect to their work. The copyrights to the posts, images and video clips remain the properties of the original creators.