Harmony with melody

                                              

                                   

It is a well- known fact Raja Harishchandra was the first Indian feature film released in 1913 which made the great Dada Saheb Phalke, the father and pioneer of Indian Film industry, however the silent era didn’t contain any songs until 1931 Alam Ara came which was the first talkie. At the most the silent era movies had a background score but no songs. The initial stages of talkies era had songs; however there was no concept of a recording studio nor of play-back singing. This procedure due to inept technology then, made recording of the songs even more onerous and unprofessional as the actors had to themselves sing their own songs and the orchestration group were featured in the songs, wherein the hero and the heroine also the audiences had to conveniently ignore their presence, as if they are unobtrusive.  Sounding strange? Yes it does today, but not those days.  The musical journey of Hindi Film Music has undergone a sea change since 1930s. As the advent progressed further for talkies, there was a golden era setting in, having singers/actors like KL Saigal, Pankaj Mullick and even noted singer KC dey whose names we take in the same breath as far as that epoch is concerned. Among the female ones, to name a few, we had Zohrabai  Ambalewali, Rajkumari, Amirbai Karnatki, Shamshad Begum, Suraiya and most famously NoorJehan who migrated to Pakistan later, to create an unfilled gap for our Indian Music post 50s. Though actors of that aeon weren’t professional trained singers who had to lip their own voices, however KL Saigal and Pankaj Mullick were the ones who were not just actors, but professional singers besides being composers. Noorjehan and Surraiya were songstresses and actresses among the female lot of that era.  Some other noted composers to mention who gave Saigal Saab a lot many gems were Khemchand Prakash, RC Boral, other than Pankaj Mullick himself who gave a lot of pie of his creations to Saigal. These two  legendary singers went on to become inspirational figures for the later generation great crooners like Lata, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi and Hemant kumar too who was known as “Chhota Pankaj Mullick “ as he was bedazzled by him. In fact Mullick was the one who made Hemant Kumar draw his proclivities towards Rabindra Sangeet.

                                After the pioneers of singing like Saigal, Pankaj Mullick , the scene shifted to, Lata, Rafi, Asha, Kishore, Mukesh, Hemant, Talat, Manna dey who carved out their own niche and many still opine 50s, 60s era as “ The Golden Era of Music”.  And besides these singers, who can forget the splendiferous composers like SD burman, Madan Mohan, C Ramchand, OP Nayyar, Naushad, Shankar- Jaikishan who were considered one of the unprecedented giant composers of that stage, other than the underrated yet talented ones like Husnalal-Bhagatram, Hansraj Behl, Jaidev, Khayyam Kalyanji-Anandji, N Dutta, Chitragupt, Ravi, Iqbal Qureshi, Sapan-Jagmohan, Sonik-Omi and many more. In fact all came up with stupendous gems and canonizing only one as the BEST COMPOSER or terming anyone as UNDERRATED COMPOSER was an injustice to others. Later came in the 70s era with RD Burman- Kishore Kumar ruling the roost and Kishore kumar hands down completely dominated the market in 70s, much of the goodwill by then superstar Rajesh Khanna who termed Kishore as his official voice. The advent of Aradhana song Mere sapnon ki rani kab from SD Burman made Rajesh Khanna- Kishore Kumar overnight superstars. However often the westernization of music is ascribed to RD Burman, but before that it were Shankar- Jaikishan to bring it more in prominence in late 60s for suiting Shammi Kapoor's on-screen Elvis Presley-like rock star image. And even before Shankar-Jaikishan it was the versatile composer C Ramchand who was music director ahead of his times and a modern thinker who broke the traditional shackles with Gore gore baanki chore, Albela songs like Shola joh bhadke, Aana meri jaan Sunday to Sunday, Eena Meena Deeka and many more club songs. However it was none other than Shri Pankaj Mullick who brought western music for the first time in Hindi Film Music with Pran chahe Naina chaahe which was a non-filmy song way back in 1940. Despite being confining to traditional Rabindra Sangeet precepts, he opted to do this change which was quite shocking yet welcoming for those days.  Then came in the 80s which had Laxmikanth Pyarelal and Bappi Lahiri who had their share of success, but melody had taken a back seat with rhythm beats taking much precedence. The respite breather came in with 90s Nadeem Shravan- Kumar Sanu – Alka Yagnik songs which were rage those days and it was all the way Kumar Sanu who was the king in 90s, with Aashiqui, Dil hain ki manta nai, Sadak, Saajan to name a few.  Other good singers too like Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Abhijit  etc came into the limelight latter.