Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs

Archive for the ‘Post by Sadanand Kamath’ Category


This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

Today, May 1st, is the 93rd birthday of one of the icons among the playback singers who has enthralled the listeners of both filmy and non-filmy songs with his versatile singing for over five decades. He is Prabodh Chandra Dey, popularly known as Manna Dey. We are fortunate that Manna Dey is with us to remain a source of inspiration for budding singers.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

Ever since Ghulam Haider introduced dholak (belonging to the percussion family) as a major musical instrument for song compositions in the super hit film ‘Khazaanchi’ (1941), it has become an inseparable part of Hindi film songs. In fact in the 50s, prominent music directors started engaging specialist dholak players in the songs’ orchestration. The introduction of dholak in the Hindi film songs has made some of them so rhythmic that a music lover consciously or unconsciously replays the rhythmic beats with his fingers on whatever place he find near him, be it on a sofa hand rest or on a table top or play it on any of the kitchen vessels as Bhagwan did in ‘ kismet ki hawa kabhi garam kabhi naram’ (Albelaa-1951).
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

Ever since I heard the songs from film ‘Badi Maa'(1945) about four decades ago, I have been a fan of music director Datta Korgaonkar (known as K Datta). It is stated that when his songs from ‘Badi Maa’ were heard by some of his contemporary music directors, they were so impressed by his compositions, especially ‘diya jalaaker aap bujhaaye’ that music directors like Shyam Sundar, Anil Biswas, Ghulam Haider and Rafiq Ghazanvi personally visited his house and congratulated him. During the last few days, I have been going through his songs on the internet and I found his compositions and orchestration of songs somewhat different from what was prevalent during his time. K Datta was active in the film industry between 1943-1956 during which time he composed music only for a dozen films but he churned out mostly good songs though they may not have become very popular among the masses. His last film as a music director was ‘Ajnabi’ (1966).
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

Last night, on our way back home after attending a marriage reception, I heard a song ‘simti huyi ye ghadiyaan’ in a FM Radio channel in our car. I had heard this song a few years back but I was not able to recall the name of the film, lyricist and music director except that I could recognise the voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi. After getting nowhere to seek the answer, I asked my sister who was travelling with me and who has a good knowledge about old Hindi film songs, whether she knew about the song. Initially, she thought that I was testing her knowledge on the old Hindi film songs. It was only when I said in all seriousness that I did not know anything about this song other than the singers that she started applying her mind on my question.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

There was a time when Hindi film industry regularly churned out films based on mythological stories. These films were produced mostly by small time producers with small budget though a few of such films were also produced under big banners like Ram Rajya (1967) by Prakash Films.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

I do not know as to why I suddenly remembered Sanjeev Kumar (real name Haribhai Jariwala) today early in the morning when I was preparing for my morning walk. His anniversary dates were nowhere near and I have not seen any of his films and video clips for a long time. As it is, my ‘area of operations’ on YT are mainly confined to the watching/listening of video/audio clips pertaining to the period between 1940-1960, straying sometime up to late 60s and most of his his songs does not fit in to my preference. Probably, this was a reminder to me from Sanjeev Kumar donning a white suit and trouser in true suspense film style echoing “old man, have a peep at me too sometime”.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

Ramesh Saigal who had produced and directed socially relevant films like ‘Shikast (1952) and ‘Railway Platform (1956), ventured in to make one more such film based on the Russian novelist Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’. The film was PHIR SUBAH HOGI (1958). Raj Kapoor and Mala Sinha were the lead actors in this movie with Rehman, Jagdish Sethi, Leela Chitnis, Nana Pansikar and Mubarak in the supporting roles. The songs were written by Sahir Ludhianvi and composed by Khayyam. As far as I know, Sahir Ludhianvi teamed up with Khayyam for the first time in this film.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

I had never heard of the film SANYASI (1945) until a few months back. The film was produced under the banner of Kardar Productions and directed by A R Kardar. The cast included Shamim Bano, Amar, Shyam Kumar, Ghulam Mohammed. I checked the available songs on internet and found to my surprise that there were 10 songs in this film out of which 7 songs were sung by Zohrabai Ambalewali (both solo and duets). These songs were written by Pandit Madhur and set to music by Naushad. Other than these, I am not able to get other details about this film such as genre and box office success or otherwise of the film.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

In the 30s and 40s, female actor-singers like Noor Jehan, Khursheed, Rajkumari, Amirbai Karnataki and Zoharabai Ambalewali dominated the Hindi film industry. These artists were based in Lahore and Bombay (Mumbai). Kanandevi who was based in Calcutta(Kolkatta) held somewhat higher status of a superstar actor-singer for nearly two decades both in Bengali and Hindi film industries. Today, April 22nd is the birth anniversary of Kanandevi who was born in Howrah to a poor family. Her adoptive father died early which forced her to take the responsibility of looking after her family at a young age of 10 years. A well wisher introduced her to Jyoti Studios where she was given a small role in a Bengali silent film Joydeb(1926). Thereafter she worked in some more silent films. It took about 10 years for her to be noticed as an accomplished actor in the film Khooni Kaun (1936).
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.

In 1949, our Hindi film music got richer by the induction of a new lyricists team of Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra and the new music director duo of Shanker-Jaikishan to the Hindi film industry. Raj Kapoor was their god father and the film BARSAAT (1949) was to decide their destiny. The film became a super hit and this combined team of lyricists and musical duo ruled the Hindi film industry for the next two decades with their down to earth lyrics with masterly compositions. It is said that with successes at every stage, ego problems do crop up leading to crack in the team. It was creditable that the entire team of Hasrat Jaipuri, Shailedra, Shanker-Jaikishanand Raj Kapoor lasted until the death of Shailendra in December 1966 and enriched the golden era of Hindi film music with their contributions.
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