Hemant Kumar- A League of his Own

Apart from books and movies, Music has been one of my other passions. And i just have a big time passion for old Hindi movie songs, especially the Golden era of 50’s and 60’s. Madan Mohan, S.D.Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, O.P.Nayyar each one of them distinct from each other, each having their own styles. I had already blogged about some of them at my site, and interested persons can check out the following posts on Salil Choudhury,Gulzar Remembers Pancham,Kaifi Azmi and
Sahir.

With his distinctive voice, excellent compositions and melodious tunes, Hemanta Kumar Mukherjee or Hemant Kumar was in a league of his own. Hemant Kumar was not just a singer, he was also a music composer and a movie producer. A truly multifaceted personality, who was a genius, like my other favorite Salil Choudhury. Hemant Da was born in Varanasi, and grew up in Kolkata. He quit …

When outsiders were preferred over regular singers : a question to music lovers

There have been many good female singers in the hindi cinema right from the days of Noorjahan and Suraiya. Geeta Dutt, Suman Kalyanpur and Sudha Malhotra all gave good and hit songs and their songs were able to compete with the songs of any good female singers active in those years. They all have many songs where question of comparison with other singers does not arise and listener is fully satisfied with their singing only. They have got many songs of their own.

Even it is hard to imagine that any other female singer could have sung Afsana Likh Rahee hoon dil e bekarar ka (Dard 1947), better than the Uma Devi, who later became famous in her new incarnation of Tun Tun-the famous female comedian.

Inspite of the fact that so many good female singers always remained active in …