With the advent of the facility of playback recording of songs came the period of specialised singers. Barring screen performers like K.L. Saigal, Noor Jehan, Suraiya, Khurshid and Kananbala there were not many artists who could act and sing with equal ease.

In the pre-Lata Mangeshkar era, there were a few playback singers such as Zohra Bai Ambalawali, Amir Bai Karnatki and, of course, Shamshad Begum (who remained on the scene till the early 1960s). Asha Bhosle was initially the poor producer’s Lata Mangeshkar until composer O.P. Nayyar groomed her, and then began the period called ‘the Mangeshkar monopoly’, to borrow writer Raju Bharatan’s widely used expression. Geeta Dutt sang by and large for her husband’s movies and for Bengali composers.

Among the male singers there was numero uno Mohammed Rafi, who reigned supreme. The short period when Lata and Rafi fell out on the question of royalties for singers, the lady refused to share the recording room with him. So the music directors recorded solos in their voices but when it came to duets, they got the lifetime clone of Rafi called Mahendra Kapoor to sing with Lata or alternatively get her sound-alike Suman Kalyanpur to share the microphone with Rafi.

Since Kapoor was a poor singer, the second alternative became the first choice for filmmakers.

In the first two parts of the series on film music, roles played by composers and lyricists in the creation of film songs were highlighted. This time the focus is on the third element of the triad — the singer, whose vocal chords give final shape to a song

Mohammed Rafi reigned supreme until a short period when Rajesh Khanna became the superstar and his first choice was Kishore Kumar. The senior singer had almost staged a comeback when death laid its icy hands on him. Earlier Mukesh and, for a shorter period, Talat Mahmood challenged Rafi but could not replace him.

In Pakistan, we had Munawwar Sultana to share the mike with the likes of Ali Bux Zahoor, Fazal Hussain and Inayat Husain Bhatti. Incidentally, Sultana and Zahoor sang for the first Pakistani movie Teri Yaad (1948).

Melody Queen Noor Jehan who moved back from Mumbai to Lahore in 1947 did not lend her voice to any other star. She was at the peak of her career in such movies as Punjabi film Chanway (1951) and Urdu film Dopatta (1952), which was followed by a string of delectable ditties in different movies. Now the question, when and how did an actress lip sync to her vocal renditions? The Melody Queen was to act in her husband Shaukat Husain Rizvi’s Jaan-e-bahar (1958). Songs were recorded but then came a split (later divorce) between the couple and Mussarrat Nazir was selected to play the leading lady which she did quite successfully.

The first female playback singer of merit to make her debut in Lahore after Partition was Zubaida Khanum, who first recorded for a Punjabi movie called Billo in 1951 but she hit the jackpot two years later with her rendition of songs for Shehri Babu.

Iqbal Bano sang quite a few songs from the ’50s to the late ’60s. She had her own style and her own fans.

Among the male singers in the 1950s to make it to the top was Saleem Raza, who recorded quite a few memorable numbers including the Nigar Award-winning song for Hamsafar(1960). He won the trophy again in a movie called Seema (1963) which had a scintillating score by Master Inayat Husain.

But Saleem Raza was pushed down from the highest rung by the immensely versatile Ahmed Rushdi who had recorded some memorable songs for children at the Karachi station of Radio Pakistan before being picked up for movies. Rushdi could sing poignant numbers with as much ease as he did when rendering vibrant songs. Examples, if examples are needed, are ‘Akele na jaana’, in the former category and ‘Ko ko koreena’ in the latter. Both from the same movie — Armaan (1966), a movie which is said to be Sohail Rana’s highwater mark as a film composer.

Rushdi retained his unchallenged position till his death. The only other singer who shared the highest perch with him was Mehdi Hasan, a trained singer, with a flair for ghazals and a grounding in classical music. His record of eight Nigar Award trophies in the category of Best Male Singer remains unchallenged.

There were other singers such as Muneer Hussain, Akhlaq Ahmed, Mujeeb Alam, Masood Rana, A. Nayyar and the man with a resonating voice called Basheer Ahmed from what was once East Pakistan. All of them had hit songs to their credit.

Among the female singers, Naseem Begum was initially considered a clone of Noor Jehan but she evolved a style of her own and went on to sing some memorable numbers, winning in the process four Nigar Award trophies for Best Female Singer. Unfortunately, she died quite young.

Mala came in the forefront too, as did Runa Laila but the family shifted to Dhaka after the creation of Bangladesh. She has had a long reign — 50 years as a film singer and has the honour of being the only vocalist to have recorded songs for Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi movies. In a recent interview she stated that her most favourite number was her maiden song ‘Unki nazron se muhabbat ka jo paigham mila’, composed by Nashad and penned by Kaleem Usmani. It was recorded in Karachi for the movie Hum Dono (1966). Her sister Dina Laila, who was supposed to be learning music from an ustad, fell ill and Runa stepped in her shoes. Later Dina recorded quite a few duets with her sister.

While on sisters one can’t forget the duet which Naheed Niazi and Najma Niazi sang for Khurshid Anwar in Koel (1959) — ‘Rim Jhim rim jhim parray phuwar’. Amazingly enough, they were joined by their three other sisters to provide choir voices to Noor Jehan’s number ‘Mujhe apni dunya mein wapas bula le’, composed by Moslehuddin for Deewana.

One of the finest things to have happened to Pakistani film music was the introduction of Mehnaz, who was gifted with a honey-soaked voice and had the advantage of being trained by her mother Kajjan Begum. She was the first choice of many composers. She won nine Nigar Award trophies for Urdu songs; Noor Jehan, in comparison, got merely six (not including her awards for Punjabi movies). The trophies in question were between 1957 to 2003, when there came a break in the annual awards. The crooner sadly died an early death.

Nayyara Noor, blessed with a mellifluous voice, could have done as well as Mehnaz, had she devoted more time to singing. Her first priority has been her family. Naheed Akhtar, Humaira Channa and Tarannum Naz sang quite a few Urdu songs, but their forte was Punjabi film songs. Their predecessors were Kausar Parveen and Irene Perveen.

Today we have fewer songs in movies. Apart from Rahat Fateh Ali, Atif Aslam and Shafqat Amanat Ali who have also lent their voices to Indian film songs, there are quite a few talented singers such as Aima Baig, Zeb Bangash, Sahir Ali Bagga, Quratulain Baloch and Ali Sethi, not to forget Momina Mustehsan, who divides her time between Pakistan and the US.

Coming back to clones, one can say that they never make it big. The one example that comes to my mind is that of C.H. Atma, who sounded like Saigal but lacked the latter’s varied skills. He was introduced by O.P. Nayyar who gave him the non-film number ‘Preetam aan milo’. His only film song ‘Ro-oon mein sagar ke kinare’ from Nagina appeared in farmaishi programmes for a few months. Likewise Karachi-based S.B. John’s only number to click was ‘Too jo nahi hai to kuch bhi nahi hai’. The history of subcontinental film music has quite a few examples of one-song or one movie wonders.

One last point: songs rendered by two singers separately are called tandems, and without being a male chauvinist, I may add that the male version almost invariably has been more appreciated. For instance, Talat Mahmood’s version of ‘Jayein to jayein kahan’ got S.D. Burman the Best Music Filmfare award for Taxi Driver (1954). It edged out the Lata Mangeshkar version. A few years later in Pakistan it was Saleem Raza’s version of ‘Zindagi mein eik pal bhi chaen aye na’ that won the Best Male singer trophy, while Nahid Niazi’s rendition of the same number in the movie — Hamsafar (1960) went largely unnoticed.

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 24th, 2018