FLASHBACK: SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE
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.