HABIB Wali Mohammad, who died in Los Angeles on Sept 4, belonged to a class of singers who would sing with solid base in their voices.

This type of singing was popularised in the subcontinent by K.L. Saigol, C.H. Atma, M. Kaleem, Hemant Kumar and Mukesh. Their singing style has now become extinct and taken over by the present generation of singers, who can only sing in high-pitched lean voices.

Despite being playback singers, all the above-mentioned people were good at the traditional ghazal singing. Habib Wali Mohammad was also apt at singing light classical songs such as Shamsheer brehna mang ghazab for the film Tiger Gang. He had skilfully sung Tarana at the end of this song.

I happened to talk to Habib Wali more than 10 years ago when he came for a solo performance at a function held by Saz-o-Awaz, a music organisation in Karachi.

Although he looked serious from his appearance, I found him a witty and humorous person. He would crack jokes in between his singing before the audience. When I reminded him about his performance at the All-Pakistan Music Conference in Lahore in the early 1960s, he joyfully narrated some of the funny remarks coming out from the audience.

Habib Wali was unique as despite having a master’s degree in business management from the US, he preferred to concentrate more on his favourite hobby, which provided him real joy and happiness during almost three quarters of a century of entertaining people with his singing.

Over the last more than two decades he would visit various cities in the US and Canada for singing performances on invitation of the Pakistani and Indian communities living there. They would get nostalgic on listening to a singer live, who belonged to the golden era of film music.

Parvez Rahim

Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014