The Super Hit Combination of Hemant Kumar, Dada Burman and Dev Anand

 

 In the early 50s, Dev Saab didn’t believe in making one singer his ‘voice’ and juggled between  Mohd. Rafi, Talat Mehmood, Hemant Kumar, and Kishore Kumar. The super hit combination of Dev with Hemant Kumar under the music direction of Dada Burman gave many Immortal Romantic Songs. He became the romantic voice of Dev Anand. He sang only 16 songs as playback for Dada Burman and 10 of those were on Dev Anand and all of them were hits. What a stupendous record.

Hemant Da in an interview said that it was S D Burman who understood the potential of his voice.The romantic pairing of my voice with his (Dev Anand’s) screen image was created by Sachin Babu (SD Burman). People simply loved it. The first song of this combination was 'from Sazaa (1951) with 'Aa Gup Chhup Gup Chhup Pyar Karen' and then the massive hit next year in Jaal,(1952) 'Yeh Raat Yeh Chandani Phir Kahan, Sun Jaa Dil ki Dastan'.

Though he sang for Dev Anand under the composition of other Music Directors also but here we are talking about the songs of this great trio.

Song of Sazaa 1951

Song of Jaal 1952

Song of Jaal 1952

Song of House No 44 1955

Song of Munim Ji 1955

Song from Solva Saal(1958)

Song from Manzil (1960)

Song from Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962)

Jaane Woh Kaise Log The Jinke Pyar Ko Pyar Mila

This immortal song of Pyaasa(1957) was written by Sahir Ludhianvi, sung by Hemant Kumar and composed by S D Burman. This song was inspired by the second stanza of our national anthem, according to a book on celebrated music composer S. D. Burman.
"In a conversation with lyricist Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Burman had mentioned that the second line of the national anthem—Punjab Sindh(u) Gujarat Maratha Dravid Utkal Banga—had inspired the line, 'Humne to Jab Khushiyaan Maangi'.
"The reference to the national anthem is so subtle that unless someone points it out, it is next to impossible to spot a similarity."
Pyaasa had 10 songs, two solo songs were sung by Geeta Dutt, and one duet of Geeta Dutt and Mohammad Rafi, all the other were solo of Rafi except this song. In fact, Guru Dutt wanted this song to be sung by Rafi but Burman Dada insisted on Hemant Kumar. Dada knew that this song suits Hemant Kumar, one of the highlights of this song was the aching frailty of Hemant's rendition.  A major argument took place between Guru Dutt, composer Burman Dada, writer Abrar Alvi, and Geeta Dutt. Finally, Dutt, who remained unconvinced, had to give in to the pressure.

This song was picturized on Guru Dutt. He is leaning against a bookshelf, wearing a white shawl, stretching his hands, a wry smile even though he was deserted. Singing in a small gathering organized by his employer Rehman, where he meets his ex-girlfriend Mala Sinha, who abandoned him for wealth by marrying none other than the man currently employing him. 
If you listen carefully you will find a piece of very light music is being played in the background. Burman Dada had arranged the song with delicate piano notes, surprisingly np piano is shown on the screen. 
Once  Burman dada was asked why this song had such little music. He replied that the poetry was the hero of the song and had to be showcased. And it’s true, the soft tune in the background pushes Sahir Ludhianvi’s words to the forefront. Unfortunately, this was the last song of Sahir composed by Dada Burman. They never worked together after this song and film.

Song of Pyaasa 1957

Hemant Kumar- Aap Ko Hamari Kasam Laut Aiye

 Every distinguished creative artiste is born with one gift, but, Hemantda was born with several gifts. As a singer, he reigned supreme in Calcutta and Bombay. From "Naagin", "Jaal" to "Bees Saal Baad" and the '50s and '60s were decades that 'belonged' prominently to the unique talents of Hemant Kumar.
He started in Bollywood as a singer, turned into a composer, and later a producer and director. His first Hindi film as a composer was the 1952 film "Anand Math".
The music of Anand Math (1952) was a moderate success. Perhaps, the most notable song from this movie is 'Vande Mataram' sung by Lata Mangeshkar, which Hemanta set to a marching tune. Hemanta Kumar gained popularity in Mumbai as a playback singer. His songs play backed for Dev Anand under music director S D Burman in movies like Jaal ("Yeh raat, yeh chandni phir kahan ... "), House No. 44 ("Chup hai dharti, chup hai chand sitare... "), Solva Saal ("Hai apna dil to awara ..... "), Funtoosh ("Teri duniya mein jeene se ... "), and Baat ek raat ki ("Na tum hame jaano ..... "), became very popular.
He became popular as a composer after the release of "Nagin" in 1954 which became a major success owing largely to its music. He received the prestigious Filmfare Best Music Director Award for this film in 1955.. his classic ‘been’ music in the song “Man Dole Mera Tan Dole" is now immortal.

In the late 1950s, Hemanta ventured into movie production under his own banner: Hemanta-Bela productions. The first movie under this banner was a Bengali film directed by Mrinal Sen, titled Neel Akasher Neechey (1959). Latter he made films in Hindi, his production company was renamed Geetanjali productions and it produced several Hindi movies such as Bees Saal Baad, Kohara, Biwi Aur Makaan, Faraar, Rahgir,  and Khamoshi — all of which had music by Hemanta Da. Only Bees Saal Baad and Khamoshi were major commercial successes.
1962 was a special year for him, The music of Bees Saal Baad and Saheb Biwi aur Ghulam became very popular. Hemanta Da pulled out all stops for a score that ranks as one of the ten best ever composed for the Hindi cinema. Between them, Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle created a universe of pain and romance in Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam. From Geeta Dutt's 'Na Jao Saiyyan..' to Asha'a 'Bhanwara Bada Naadan Hai..', each song stuns each note cuts deeply in Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam.

Hemant Kumar was also remained connected with Bangla Films throughout his career, in fact, he was very busy there in the late 60s and 70s. He remained the foremost exponent of Rabindra Sangeet, film and non-film songs. His output continued to be popular for most of the decade. Some of them are Jodi jante chao tumi... (1972), Ek gochha rajanigandha , Aamay prasno kore nil dhrubatara..., Sedin tomay dekhechilam... (1974), Khirki theke singho duar... (Stree, 1971), Ke jane ko ghonta... ( Sonar Khancha, 1974), Jeona daraon bandhu... ( Phuleswari, 1975 ) and popularised Rabindra sangeet using them beautifully in films as per situations. A very popular and classic example is the song Chorono dhorite diyogo amare.. in Dadar Kirti(1980). 
In 1980, Hemanta had a heart attack that severely affected his vocal capabilities, especially his breath control. After that, he composed music for a handful of Bengali movies and one Bengali and one Hindi tele-series.In 1987, he was nominated for Padmabhushan which he refused politely.

In September 1989 he traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to receive the Michael Madhusudan Award, as well as to perform a concert. Immediately after returning from this trip he suffered another heart attack on 26 September and died at 11:15 pm in a nursing home in South Calcutta.

With him, an era ended, but Hemant Kumar can never be forgotten. His music will live on for another 100 years. “Beqaraar Karke Humein Yun Na Jaaiye, Aap Ko Hamari Kasam, Laut Aiye"

Song of Anandmath 1951

Song of Sazaa 1951

Song from Patita (1953)

Song from Shart (1954)

Song from Nagin (1954)

Song from Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje (1955)

Song from House No. 44 (1955)

Song from Pyaasa (1957)

Song from Solva Saal (1958)

Song from Kabuliwala (1961)

Song from Anupama 1966

Song from Khamoshi 1969

Song from Bees Saal Baad 1963

Hemant Kumar-The Romantic Voice of Dev Anand

Hemant Kumar once confessed in a Doordarshan interview that it was the efforts of Burman and Dev that made him popular. Burman Dada took Hemant Kumar for the first time for Dev Anand was for the song ‘Aa Gupchup Gupchup Pyar Karen’ in Sazaa.
S.D. Burman and the majestic Hemant Kumar created musical and cinematic magic  for the song ‘Yeh Raat Yeh Chandni’ in Jaal. 1952. Inspired by Burman’s success, Shankar-Jaikishan opted for Hemant to sing for Dev, along with Lata Mangeshkar, the haunting ‘Yaad Kiya Dil Ne’ in Patita in 1953. 
Dev Anand and Hemant Kumar together created some of the most memorable songs of Hindi film music.Hemant Kumar once said that the most hit songs of his career were those he sang for Dev Anand. He had a great respect for Dada Burman ,  Kumar sang only 16 songs as playback for Dada Burman and 10 of those were on Dev Anand and all of them were hits! What a stupendous record!
Burman, the musical soul of Dev, kept using Hemant in one hit after another. ‘Teri Duniya Mein’, ‘Chup Hai Dharti’ ( House No. 44), ‘Shivji Bihane Chale’, ‘Dil Ki Umange’ with Geeta Dutt ( Munimji) and ‘Hai Apna Dil To Awara’ ( Solva Saal). 
In 1955, Hemant Kumar scored music for Hemen Gupta’s Ferry, starring Dev and Geeta Bali. Hemant sang inimitably the background number ‘Naav Badha Le Maajhi’ in Ferry.
One of the biggest hits of Dev Anand-Hemant Kumar, the mesmerizing Na tum humein jaano, was the last of their songs together. Haunting and romantic, this duet with Suman Kalyanpur had the audiences falling in love with the number over and over again.

Song of Sazaa 1951

Song of Jaal1952

Non Film Songs Of Great Singers

Preference in music is so subjective. What I like, might not be liked by you. I like some songs due to their lyrics, some due to the singer, some due to the music, One could dislike these very songs because they don't like the lyrics, or the beats, or the singer. Similarly many of us like Film songs but many of us who like Non-film songs.
Regarding the Non Film songs, we must know that much before Films started Talking and singing, the Non-Film Songs were famous in many forms. Bhajans and Classical songs were the most popular Non-Film Songs during silent films. The first recorded song was in 1902 which was manufactured in Germany and shipped to India in April 1903. It was sung by Gauhar Jaan 
In 1930, All India Radio started and in 1931 the films started talking. However, records of film songs were in general not made those days, though the first film song record came in 1932. Till about 1939-40, records of film songs were not made from every film. So, people continued to enjoy the NON FILM SONGS by famous singers. This trend of making records of NFS was so popular that most Film singers started their careers by recording NFS. Examples are Talat Mehmood, Hemant Kumar, S D Burman, Lata, Asha, Mukesh, Rafi etc.
 In this Blog I have taken many of those Non-film songs of great singers of their time.

A Rare Non Film Song recorded in 1914,Song-Kaho guinyya kaise kate saari raat (Baby Amirjan NFS)(1914) Singer-Amirbai Karnataki

D V Paluskar was a Hindustani classical vocalist. He was considered a child prodigy. He cut his first disc in 1944.. He was a master at presenting an attractive and comprehensive picture of a raga in a very short duration. Besides pure classical music, he was also a great Bhajan singer. 

K L Saigal The immortal Singer K L Saigal rendered 185 songs which include 142 film songs and 43 non-film songs. His non-film songs comprise bhajans, ghazals and hori. 

                               Mein Jo Dinan Ki Thhori Hori Geet by KL Saigal

Pankaj Mullick, worked as music director to artists like K.L. Saigal, S.D. Burman, Hemanta Mukherjee, Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle. He acted with famous film actors like K L Saigal, P.C. Barua and Kanan Devi. Along with Nitin Bose His voice best suited for philosophical and sentimental songs. He sang many such genresmaster madan of songs both filmy and non-filmy.

                                           Na Kar Itna Pyar... Pankhaj Mallick

Master Madan was a child prodigy, unfortunately, he died at the age of 15. The child prodigy started singing at the tender age of three and quickly became a craze all over India. His astonishingly mature voice left a deep impression on the listeners. Anyone with even a passing interest in music is familiar with these two Sagar Nizami's ghazals,

Yun naa reh reh kar hamein tarsaaiye

Hairat se tak rahaa hei jahane wafa mujhe

Noorjehan was the female singing superstar in the 40s. She shifted to Pakistan during the partition. She may have sung many NFS in Pakistan but in India, she sang only a few one of those is given here.

Jogan ki jholi bhar de o shah madeene waale

C.H. Atma  His evergreen song is 'Preetam Aan Milo', which he sang in 1945 for a private album. In 1955, the same song was sung by Geeta Dutt for the film, Mr. & Mrs. '55 for composer O. P. Nayyar, who was a great fan of his singing.^[2] His voice was quite similar to K. L. Saigal. But he had his own unique style which he implied to become one of the fewest singers to become extensively popular both in film and non-film music. 

Begum Akhtar  a well known Indian singer of Ghazal, Dadra, and Thumrigenres of Hindustani classical music. She was given the title of Mallika-e-Ghazal .She was among the early female singers to give a public concert. Her first public performance was at the age of fifteen.She has nearly four hundred songs to her credit. She was a regular performer on All India Radio. She usually composed her own ghazals and most of her compositions were raag based.Her ghazal ‘ae mohabbat tere anjaam pe ronaa aayaa’ and Begum Akhtar are inseparable. 

Geeta Dutt -It was in the year 1946 that Geeta Roy sang for Pandit Hanuman Prasad in a mythological movie, Bhakt Prahlad. In 1947 S D Burman took her for Do Bhai. The success of the music of Do Bhai (especially the song "Mera sundar sapna beet gaya") catapulted Geeta to the top bracket of female playback singers. 

Talat Mahmood   was a very gifted singer in every sense. He was particularly famous for singing soft and sombre semi-classical and non-classical ghazals, He started his career purely as a ghazal singer in 1939. Talat Mahmood began his singing career at the age of 16 in 1939 when he began singing the Ghazals of Daag, Mir, Jigar etc. on All India Radio, Lucknow. In 1944 came the hit Tasveer teri dil mera behela nah sake gi. Its popularity was so phenomenal and unrivalled that even today it remains one of the top-selling non-film discs

Manna Dey, He debuted in the film Tamanna in 1942. After the song "Upar Gagan Bishal" composed by S D Burman he saw success and went on to record more than 4,000 songs. The first song which was broadcasted on the inaugural day of Vividh Bharati was ‘naach re mayuraa’ (1957)which was sung by Manna Dey. The song was penned by Pandit Narendra Sharma especially for the occasion and set to music by Anil Biswas

Hemant Kumar - an Indian playback singer, music directorand film producer, who sang in Bengali, Hindi and other Indian languages. He is also the greatest artist of Rabindra Sangeet. In 1947, Hemanta recorded a non-film song called "Ganyer badhu"  that had music and lyrics by Salil Chowdhury..This song generated an unforeseen popularity for Hemanta 

Hemant Kumar sang nearly 60 NFS of which three-fourth were released in the 40s and 50s. Most of his NFSs of 40s and 50s were composed by music directors like Kamal Dasgupta, Durga Sen, Ravi 

The two most popular NFSs of Hemant Kumar in terms of frequency of them being played on the radio in the 60s were (i) ‘aanchal se kyon baandh liyaa mujhe pardesi kaa pyaar’ and (ii) ‘bhala thhaa kitnaa apnaa bachpan’. 

aanchal se kyon baandh liyaa mujhe pardesi kaa pyaar

Paa kar bhi tumhen ham paa na sakey

Meena Kumari -We all know about her acting but we are not aware of her singing and poetic side.she wrote shayari in the pseudo name of Naaz.Meena Kumari was also a playback singer. She sung as a child artist for films like Bahen till 1945.She sang 3 songs for the film  Duniya Ek Sarai (1946),five songs for Piya Ghar Aaja (1947),6 songs for Bichchade Balam (1948) even ONE song for Pakeezah (1972). However, this song was not used in the film and was later released in the album Pakeezah-Rang Barang (1977).

Poetry was in her blood. Her father Ali Baksh was an Urdu poet and attached with Parsi theatre. Her mother, Iqbal Bano was actually a stage artist,In 1970, an LP was released,The title of the LP – ‘I Write, I Recite’. This LP has nine ghazals written and sung by herself. 

Chaand tanha hai aasmaan tanha 

Malika Pukhraj -  a highly popular Ghazal and folk singer.Sometime in the late 30s, the glamour of films brought her to Bombay (Mumbai) to act in films. However, after doing a couple of day’s shooting for a film, she could not adjust to the atmosphere of film shooting. So she left the film half-way and fled to Lahore feigning illness. 

Like Begum Akhtar, in the later years, Malika Pukhraj mainly concentrated on singing ghazals based on semi-classical music. She also sang and recorded folk songs in Dogri, her native language.She was among the greatest singers of India in the 1940s, and after Partition of India in 1947, she migrated to Lahore, Pakistan, where she received much more fame, through her radio performances

Abhi to main jawaan hoon

Mukesh - is considered to be one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the Hindi film industry.The first song that he sang for a Hindi film was "Dil Jalta Hai To Jalne De".He also sang many non film songs.It is more than 100.

Baharon Se Keh Do ... Mere Ghar Na Aayein

                            Jiyenge Magar Muskura Na Sakenge Ki Ab Zindagi Main...

Mohammed Rafi -one of the greatest singers of the Indian sub continent..Rafi was notable for his voice and versatility; his songs ranged from fast peppy numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs. He has sung in many regional Indian languages including Konkani, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili. Apart from Indian languages, he also sang songs in many foreign languages including English, Farsi, Arabic, Sinhalese, Creole and Dutch.He recorded many private albums in various genres and languages, many of which are noted as all-time classics today.

                                                 Tum Aao Rumjhum Karti

                                            Ek Hi Baat Zamane Ki- Mohd Rafi Ghazal

Lata Mangeshkar - Lata Mangeshkar had sung many ghazals in Hindi films especially under the baton of Madan Mohan. During 1960-70, Lata Mangeshkar had sung some beautiful non-filmy ghazals. In 1969, a LP of her non-filmy ghazals of Mirza Ghalib composed by her brother Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar was released.Similarly LP of Lata was released in 70s of Meera Bhajan The album's name is actually known as "Chala Wahi Des".Another immortal NFS is "Ae mere watan ke logon” 

                                                    Lata ji Sings Mirza Ghalib...

Ghiri ghataayen aasmaan par( Lata NFS)(1969)