Golden Era of Bollywood: Manna Dey-The Great Versatile Singer of Bollywood

Manna Dey was a very versatile singer and there was no playback singer who could imitate Manna Dey's versatility. The great Mohammed Rafi once commented that though people listen to his songs, he himself hears only Manna Dey's songs. He established his versatility between 1948 to 1954 by singing not only the classical-based film songs but also singing such film songs which were the fusion of Indian classical music and pop music.
His experimentation with western music too produced many unforgettable melodies resulting in an increase in singing offers in films from 1955. It was an irony that he was typed for classical songs, background songs and sons for comedians specially Mehmood. His deep classical training could have been the reason for this anomaly.
Born on 1st May 1929 was highly inspired and influenced by his Uncle K C Dey the legendary Singer of the late 30s and 40s. He began taking music lessons from Krishna Chandra Dey and Ustad Dabir Khan. During this period, he stood first for three consecutive years in three different categories of inter-collegiate singing competitions.
At the age of 22 years, he started working as an assistant music director first under Krishna Chandra Dey, and then under Sachin Dev Burman. Later, he assisted other music composers and then started to work independently. Dey started his career in playback singing with the movie Tamanna, in 1942. The musical score was by Krishna Chandra Dey and Manna De sang a duet named "Jago Aayee Usha Ponchi Boley Jago" with Suraiya which was an instant hit.
It was only in 1943 that he got his first solo break with Ram Rajya. Incidentally, the producer of the film Vijay Bhatt and its composer Shankar Rao Vyas had approached K C Dey with an offer for playback in the film. When K C Dey refused the offer on the grounds that he would not lend his voice to other actors, they spotted Manna Dey sitting in the corner of the room and offered him the opportunity..
After that Manna Dey gave many hit songs.His songs like "O Prem Diwani Sambhal Ke Chalna" from 1944 film Kadambari composed by Anil Biswas, "Dil Churaney Ki Liye from Dur Chaley" (1946) composed by Jafar Khurshid, his duets with Amira Bahee like "E Diniya Jara Suney" from Kamala (1946) and duet song "Aaj Bor Aayee" with Meena Kapoor from 1947 film Chaltey Chaltey became chartbusters in respective years. Between 1945-47 many Manna Dey-Rajkumari duets like "Hay Gagan Me Badal Tharey" in 1945 for the film Vikaramaditya, "Aowji Morey" from Insaaf (1946), all 4 duets from the film Geet Govind composed by Pandit Indra - "Kit Ho Nando Kumar", "Chorr Sakhi Aaj Laj", "Apney Hi Rang", "Lalit Labang Lata" from Geet Govind became popular.
His first duet with the then-upcoming singer Lata Mangeshkar was "Lapat Ke Pot Pahaney Bikral" composed by Vasant Desai for Narsingh Avtar (1949), With Lata Mangeshkar, Manna recorded around 103 Hindi duets of which songs like "Tere Bina Aag Yeh Chandni" from Awara, "Yeh Raat Bhigi Bhigi" and "Aaja Sanam Madhur Chandni Mein" from Chori Chori, "Pyar hua iqrar hua" from Shree 420, "Woh Chand Muskaye" from Akhri Dao (1958), "Ritu aye", "Dil Ki Girah Khol Do" from Raat Aur Din (1966), "Aya Abdulla Aya" from Juaari (1968), "Soch Ke Ye Gagan Jhume" from the flop film Jyoti (1969) and "Mein Buddho Lambo Lambo" of Buddha Mil Gaya (1971) are still extremely popular.
Manna Dey recorded popular duets with Mohd. Rafi, Dey sang 101 Hindi songs along-with Rafi which include "Ishq Ishq" (Barsaat Ki Raat) "Tu Hai Mera Prem Devta" (Kalpana), "Mama o mama" (Parvarish), Duniyaan key Liye from Maan Gaye Ustaad (1981), "Main Hoon Tera Prem Aur Tu Ho Meri Pran" from Rahu Ketu (1979), the song "Hindustan Ki Kasam" from Hindustan Ki Kasam (1973), "Hum To Tere Hai Deewane" from Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong, "Badey Miya Diwane" from Shagird, "Ye Do Diwane Dil Ke" from Johar Mehmood in Goa, "Agar Dil Dil Se" from Shola Aur Shabnam(1961).
With Kishore Kumar, it was "Subah Ki Paheli Kiran" from 1951 film Anadolan composed by Pannalal Ghosh. They sang together 6 songs till 1968 but the demand increased after 1972. Their popular songs were "Mere Pyale Mein" from Aamir Garib (1974), "Is Ishq Mein Har" from Mr. Romeo (1974), "Yeh Dosti" from Sholay (1975), "Duniya Me Jeeney" from Naukri, "Kamal Hain" from Karz, "Phool Chaahiye Na" from Pyas (1982) and their last duet was in 1986 film Maqqar .
The trio of Rafi-Kishore-Manna Dey sang together hits like "Tujhme Ishwar, Allah Tujhme" from Nanha Farishta (1969) and "Band Muthee" from Chalti Ka Naam Zindagi (1981).
Some of his greatest songs are non-filmi. He recorded selections from Harivanshrai Bachchan’s Madhushala and his songs such as Nathni se toota moti re and Yeh awaara se din has loyal fans. He sang in many languages like in Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Maithili, Punjabi, Assamese, Odia, Konkani, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, and Nepali.
He died of a cardiac arrest at 3:45 pm on 24 October at Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in Bengaluru, aged 94.

Some of the Most Popular Songs of Manna Dey