My husband and I were listening to My name is Anthony Gonsalves on FM radio the other night. We got to talking about Manmohan Desai movies and then Laxmikant Pyarelal andother music directors. And I realized I had very little to say about LP – or even knew very little. Inheriting the Raj Kapoor legacy after Shankar Jaikishan. Bobby, at best? Enjoy while they last Manmohan Desai flicks. *nyahhhh*
I tried a quick free word (or phrase? or song?) association in my mind about music directors… whatever I remember from that…
S.D. Burman – blockbuster man. genius. (has the question of who was greater between father-son been resolved yet? me says pop) Chalti ka naam gaadi to Taxi driver and Sujata and then all the way through Guide to Aradhana to Abhimaan…
Hemant kumar – was a better composer than singer. Khamoshi and Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi. Also Bees saal baad, Saahib biwi aur gulam…
Shankar Jaikishan – Raj Kapoor, nasal nyah-nyah Mukesh, Shailendra… Beyond that, no associations for me?
Salil Choudhry – melody that is dreamy and you can’t stop humming… with that happy smile on your face… Madhumati, O sajna barkha bahaar aayi (Parakh), everything from Anand, especially the lesser appreciated Na jiya laage na, in Malayalam, Chemmeen? And in all that melody, a suprise package – Half ticket – cheel cheel chillake kajri sunaaye… Salilda – definitely among my top favorites…
Khayyam – music that is haunting…. that transports you elsewhere… Ae dil-e-nadaan from Razia Sultana, Umrao Jaan – dil cheez kya hai aap meri jaan lijiye. And grudgingly, Kabhi Kabhi…
RD Burman – many of his films that I have wrongly attributed to SD for a long time – including the superb Amar Prem. (Would Rajesh Khanna have been what he was but for RD?). Sheer brilliance in the seventies… Aandhi and Ghar… Mehbooba mehbooba… Melody, madness, whatever… Rimjhim girey saawan… And he was the saving grace in many many movies during the whacky and often terrible and mediocore eighties.
And to me, RD immediately brings to mind Gulzar – the two together worked sheer magic. *sighhhhhh*. And then a terrible way to end – Kumar Sanu. * blech*
Kalyanji Anandji – er. hmm. ho.
And to end, the supremely mediocore and arrogant Himesh Reshammaiya (am really sorry about this but I did think of him too – and I must mention this here) – who said in a recent interview – “people criticise me for my nasal voice. So what if I have a nasal voice – so did Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan”.
Right.
***
These were just what I have called them – free and immediate associations during a longish car drive with FM in the background. Not a well thought out and googled dissertation. I came back home and remembered Madan Mohan and OP Nayyar – but then the drive was over – and so was the mood…
Enjoyed this. More so, because I entertain thoughts very similar to yours, about these composers.
93.5 Monday night-a? 😉
-b
1)once upon a time hindi film music was looked down by the “high society people”…things have changed…hindi film music is now played in clubs and discs…signs of our new found confidence in ourselves…as far as me is concerned i grew up listening to hindi film music…my room use to resemble HMV shop…lol…hundred and hundred of them….whenever i use to listen to radio…it was like “do i have this song with me”
2) the question that who is the better artist (rd vs sd) to me is irrelevent …art cannot be measured….i often wonder…how can a jury decide…which is the best song or best movie for that matter…
3) why grudgingly “kabhie kabhie”….’kabhie kabhie mere dil mein khayal aata hai’…is one of my fav….
4) and next time when u hear “barkha bahar aaye” …listen to the sitar tune just after these words…sheer genius of Salilda
5) as usual i was late in commenting in ur last post…so didnt got any return comments…but wud still like to know what u think on what i had said
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan….have u listened music of “bandit queen”….one of the best of nineties….Himesh Reshamayia…whats the saying “thotha channa baaje ghana”
Shruthi 🙂 (somehow I just don’t think of them as “composers’ – ‘music director’ is just the ohrase that has stuck on in my head – wonder why…?)
Bubby, 98.3 9-11 pm with Kalindi on ‘purani jeans’ – vamsi and I go for long drives on palm beach road whenever he is home early 🙂
sherriff, you are so right – I have seen in uppity clubs where people start dancing only when the hindi tracks are played… as of which artist is better, I dont know about judging but we all definitely have our favorites – I actually keep swinging between SD and RD!
kabhi kabhi is nice… but noty a big favorite with me… and yup, salilda is a genius… king of melody…
Himesh R, grrrrr. that man is insufferable…
Why end such an enjoyable mail with HimeshReshamia.
And to top it all the amount of time on the music channels he is hogging.
Wonder if the channels are paid to repeat a song.
Absolutely insufferable.
I’m going to mark this post as a quick-reference guide on composers! Yep, OPNayyar and Madan Mohan–in recent times we had Andaaz apna apna with OP flavored songs. And of course the USP of Veer Zara was MM. But what about ARR? I thought you were oly metioning the “oldies” but Himesh Reshamiyya popped up, so—?
Salil, Lak, sorry 🙂 adding HR at the end was just a keeda… in any case, since I read that interview about the Nusrat bit, I have been meaning to rant about it somewhere… he is sooooo bad…
Lak, ARR was not even in my mind… this was indeed about oldies but then HR popped up because I guess such arrogance is hard to ignore 🙂
someone else asked me why I hadn’t mentioned Ilayaraja… maybe another post on tamil composers?
Charu,
Can you send me your email id (with lots of MB space). My wife and I are big HFM buffs. Mail your email id to smorgasbord@rediffmail.com
I’ll send you my “other” email id & music related stuff from there.
Charu
Nice post, one that I can relate to quite a lot since I’ve spent a lot of my college days discussing this topic.
Others that come to mind: C. Ramachandra, Khurshid Anwar, N. Dutta, Naushad, Ravi, Chitragupta, Ravindra Jain (those wonderful Yesudas classical-based pieces) et al.
Btw, I do not like most of the music created by Kalyanji Anandji & Laxmikant Pyarelal. That said, they have composed a lot of classical based numbers that are good.
Sorry to be a comment hog. I’ve sent emails to your gmail account listed in this blog.
C. Ramachandra and Naushad come to my mind! Of these two, C. Ramachandra had done extensive use of classical-fusion with use of jazz-clarinet-bongos! Listen to his duet with Lata Mangeshkar from the movie Albela (1951) called Shaam Dhale Khidki Tale. Some more songs by him were – Ina Mina Dika, Shola Jo Bhadke, Aana Meri Jaan Sunday ke Sunday and the V. Shantaram movie Navrang!
Nice Blog. I like it.
Thank you
does anyone know where i can find the musical notes for Kabhi Kabhie
Thanks
O P Nayyar passed away today. He made the world beautiful and helped us feel is more closely. We will always remember him fondly.