As the Journey of Micro-Viewing the songs of a given year has progressed, backwards in terms of the chronology of the years, the task of selecting TOP music director has become an exercise that is getting severely affected by MY limited exposure to the pre-1950 songs. Music directors with whose work I am more acquainted were making initial tentative strides in the years before 1949. Some of the otherwise familiar music directors, like Naushad or Anil Biswas, had not yet fully graduated to post-1950 styles. The Hindi Film Music field of post-1950 years was to so dramatically changed that criteria like number of films in year, or number popular songs in year seem carrying no purpose.
As such, therefore this exercise essentially remains MY micro-summary View of the songs from rests mainly on one of dimension, that of songs of the music director(s) that I liked most. However, I have included two other parameters too in this Micro View. Nonetheless, this review does not male any claim to be a review of overall impact a music director has made in that year.
So, here we go into MY mico-view of the Top Music Director(s) for the year 1946:
The review parameters that form the base of discussin are:
- Music directors of the films appearing in the heading image of the overview post Best songs of 1946: And the winners are?’,
- Top Box-oofice grossers for the year and
- The quantitative summary of Music directors whose songs appear in MY TOP micro-view of other three dimensions, viz. of Solo songs of Male Playnack Singers, Solo songs of Female Playback Singers and the Duets.
A] SoY over-view post banner
The banners of SoY over view posts fairly faithfully reflect the most noted films of the given year from the view of the songs and music of the films in that year.
For 1946, we have Anmol Ghadi and Shajehan (Music Director: Naushad Ali), Eight Days (Music Director: S D Burman), and Safar (Music Director: C Ramchandra).
Over and above Anmol Ghadi and Shajehan, Naushad indeed continues to remain a heavy-wieght player in the year with the third film Keemat this year. Naushad has three excellent singers –Noor Jehan, Surendra and Suraiya – for Anmol Ghadi, K L Saigal – for his three wel-known, loved and remembered even now solos – in Shahjehan. In comparision, Keemat does not have ‘star singers’, but Naushad has done all the justsice to main sigers Amirbai Karanataki and NAseem Akhtar in the songs for the film.
Along with Eight Days and Shikari, S D Burman’s debut with Hindi films remains noteworthy. He has commandeerd the musical resource, in terms of playback singers, well enough to successfully create songs that seem to lend fresh breath with the vintage era environment.
C Ramchandra ‘s Safar is indeed a trail-balzing one, both from the point of view of his own career as well as for some deifinitive trends in the Hindi Film Music. Before, Safar, he had done 10 C grade films and just 5 social films and his name had not yet become famous. The success of Safar’s music changed that scene for ever. If his duet with Beenapani Mukhrjee, Kanhi Yaad Kar Ke, Gali Paar Kar Ke, Chali Aana Hamare Angana, set his very distinctive western-music influenced peppy songs, his two solos for Mohammad Rafi, Ab Wo Hamare Ho Gaye, Iqrar Karen Ya Na Karein and Kah Ke Bhi Na Aaye Tum, Ab Chuupane Lage Taare helped Rafi in not firmly setting his foot on the scene but also helped evolve his own style.
B] Top Five box-office grossers for 1946
The popularity of the songs has remained one major factor that influenced the success of a film at the box office.
For the year 1946, the Top Five box-office grosser films and the corresponding music directos are:
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- Anmol Ghadi – Naushad Ali
- Shahjehan- Naushad Ali
- Phoolwari – Hansraj Behl
- Omar Khaiyyam – Lal Mohammad
- 1857 – Sajjad Hussain
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We have had a fairly detailed look at the songs form these films in our Male Solos, Female Solos and Duets sections. Aprt from the songs from the two wel-known films, two solos Surendra – Wo Paheli Mulaqat Hi Bas Pyar Ban Gayi – 1857, K L Saigal – Hare Bhare Baag Ke Phoolo Pe Riza Khayyam – Omar Khaiyyam – have found place in MY Top (Male Solo) songs too. Of course, appearance of a song, or otherwise, does not have any reflection on either the merits of the song or its then then popularity, as these are driven by my own limted range of choice of songs for these years.
C] Quantitative add-on view of other three dimensions, viz. My Top Solo songs of Male Playnack Singers, Solo songs of Female Playback Singers and the Duets –
Since I have bent towards a wide range of singers, as well as not-sofamiliar=to-me songs while selecting the songs in these three categories, the numbers in the present analysis, in all probabilities, expectedly should emerge the music director(s) whose songs I liked for 1946. It is likely that casting the net wider over all the songs that have appeared in the micro-review of the respective category may have yielded a different pattern. But in a year where most of the songs are heard first time, such an exercise would not have helped to identify the music director who has bearing on the songs that I liked.
We have two sets of data – music directors who has only song in any one of these categories and the music directors who have either one song in more than one categories or more than one song in one or more categories.
Lal Mohammad, Sajjad Hussain, S N Tripathi, Gulshan Sufi, K C Dey and Rasheed Atre have one song in MY top Male Solos, Shankar Rao Vyas, Shantikumar, Hafeez Khan, Vinod, Sushant Banerjee, Shyam Sundar and Prem Nath have song each in MY Top Female Solos and Narayan Rao has one song in MY Top Duets.
The music directors whose one or more songs have appeared in one or more of the categories are.
Music Director | Male Solos | Female solos | Duets | Total |
C Ramchandra | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
S D Burman | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Bulo C Rani | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Naushad Ali | 3 | 2 | 5 | |
Hansraj Behl | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
Vasant Desai | 2 | 2 | ||
Anil Biswas | 2 | 2 | ||
Kamal Dasgupta | 2 | 2 | ||
Qadir Faridi | 2 | 2 | ||
H P Das | 1 | 1 | 2 |
These analyses would yield Naushad Ali as the MOST Liked Music Director for 1946, without in any way diminishing my LIKEs of the songs of all other music directors.
How would have you analysed the Songs of 1946?
I look forward to you to join me to take up a similar detailed Micro View when SoY takes up futher more challenging year of 1945 next in this Best songs of year series.
P.S. : All the episodes of The Micro View of Best Songs of 1946 can be read / downloaded from one file, by clicking on the hyper link.
P.P.S – In the final wrap-up article, Best songs of 1946: Final Wrap Up 4, the SoY Award for the Best Music Director of 1946 goes to Naushad. And, special mention is made of Ghulam Haider and Hansraj Bahal for their outstanding music in the year.