(!Rafi) && (!KK)
Abhay Avachat
Hi Netters,
This is NOT another article in the never ending series of Rafi vs KK.
In fact I want to discuss other singers than Rafi and KK. The question
I want to ask is are the other singers as great as Rafi-KK ? Actually I
want to ask - Are the other singers just 'good' singers and not 'great'
singers ?
Well by other singers I mean the singers of the older generations like
Mukesh, Manna, Talat, Hemantkumar etc. and also of the new generations
like Moham.Aziz, Sanu, Bhupendra, Yeshudas, BSB etc.
Let me also make it clear that this comparison I am making is based on
their performance in Hindi Movies. Also these are _MY_ purely personal
opinions, and I do _NOT_ want to start any flame war but just a positive
discussion. The following opinions are totally subjective, so please
keep it a light-hearted discussion.
Now what I mean by great and good ? This is slightly hard to express.
There are lots of points but I am choosing these at the moment.
One is versatality, perhaps many will agree that no other singer has
came close to these great two ie Rafi-KK. Assuming many really think so,
I don't discuss this further. (Pl. comment)
The real points I want to discuss are the followings.
Many many many times after listening to songs by Rafi-KK I had a feeling
that this song just can't sound so good, had it been sung by somebody
else. e.g. "O mere dilke chain", "Mere Mehboob kayamat hogi", "Mera
Jeevan kora kagaz" etc. by KK ..or.. "Suhani rat dhal chuki.." or
"Duniyan na bhaye mohe, ab to bulale" , or "Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi"
etc. by Rafi. The list is undoubtedly very looong. I am not mentioning
the songs which were sung by keeping a particular actor in mind, ie Rafi
singing for Shammi / Johny Walker.
But this feeling I havn't got so strongly for other singers for such a
large no. of songs. In fact for many songs _I_ felt that well somebody
else eg Rafi would have sung this much better. This feeling is highest
for Mahendra Kapoor, where I feel he is nothing but "poor man's Rafi".
The feeling is also strong for Hemantkumar, eg How this would have
sounded - Rafi for "Jara nazaron se kehadoji.." and KK for "Tum pukaralo
tumhara intazaar hain" ? Just wild imagination ... Actually after
listening to these songs many times, it is difficult to imagine how some
other singer would have sung this..BUT..This But remains in my mind.
For Talat too, yes, I do feel this many times. eg "Yeh hawa yeh raat yeh
chandani ..", or "Aasoon samajhake kyon mujhe .." . Would they sound
better in Rafi's voice ? With Talat I have a strong objection, whenever
the higher pitch is needed, his voice dosen't sound comfortable to me.
Mukesh, is perhaps the only exception to me. Manna, again I feel we
could do with Rafi & KK for many songs. eg. "Sanjh dhali, dil ki lagi
thak chali pukarke, aa ja aa ja aa bhi ja" and "Sur na saje kya gaaon.."
by Rafi (imagine) and "Jindagi Kaisi hain paheli.." by KK.
Actually to summerise, __*_IMHO_*__ these singers Hemant, Talat etc. are
suited for a particular type of song only and not for any song.
Now before anyone gets angry I must make it clear that...
I AM NOT SAYING THESE ARE BAD SINGERS. In fact the ones I
mentioned above are definitely good, very good singers. BUT
the way I feel that a particular song and Rafi/KK combination
is inseparable, I don't feel the same way for other singers
for as many % of their songs.
Any takers ?
Secondly Rafi and KK _suited_ many many actors and nonactors (eg Bharat
Bhushan-Rafi and Navin Nischal-KK). To which actors suited other singers?
Mukesh for RK. Yes. But Talat, Hemantkumar, Manna ?
Here again the actor-singer combination is not inseparable.
Well I haven't said anything about the newer singers, but does one need
to say anything about the parasite singers who just immitate others ?
Yeshudas IMO has sung relatively very few songs, although he is real
good. BSB unfortunately sounds miserable to me in Hindi. [A totally
unconnected thing - When as a kid I saw Shankarabharanam on TV I liked
the songs. I had forgotten the singer. Just an year back one of my Tamil
friends told me - it's BSB - I just couldn't believe it. I had heard BSB
in Saajan - "Bahut pyar karate hain tumse sanam", remember the way he
sings "aarazoo" in the begining of a stanza "Hame har ghadi, aarazoo hai
tumhari", I hated it. But then he showed me a video cassette of BSB's
songs, it's wonderful. There is one song on a beach with BSB himself
acting. He sings a comlpete stanza in one breath without taking a pause,
without too much noticable stress ! Apart from the feat of singing for
N no of seconds without pause, the song is also sweet and watchable. I
have forgotten the name of the movie. Oooops, this is not BSB thread, I
am sorry.]
There are definitely other points for comparing singers, but my aim is
to discuss their indispensibility for their songs, a large % atleast.
Ofcourse we can also discuss for A particular song.
Again, these are personal and so subjective opinions, please no flames.
Thanx.
Abhay
--
========================================================================
Tuze hum wali samazate, jo na badakhwar hota !
- Mirza Ghalib, said to me.
========================================================================
PVR Narasimha Rao
[This is a follow-up to Abhay's nice article]
I agree that no one comes close to Rafi and SRT in terms of versatility
(though I strongly feel that Manna is as versatile as these two. Lets not
argue now).
However, why on earth should versatility (or indispensability for that
matter) be a criterion for greatness? What the does this word "great" mean?
Greatness is an intuitive, personal and heuristic concept. DON'T, I repeat,
DON'T try to analyze it. There are no universal criteria for it. Any
analysis boils down to personal opinions if you look closely. (However, I am
not criticizing Abhay who clearly said he was talking about his personal
views.)
Anyway, my 2 cents on the greatness of Hemant, Talat and Manna:
HEMANT KUMAR:
He is full of class, though it may not be apparent to everyone. One who is
inclined can see magic in his voice. And, I MEAN `magic'.
You don't need to listen to any song other than "yaad kiyaa dil ne kahaan ho
tum" (which almost every Hindi film music fan must've heard atleast once).
When he says "tum hamaari zindagi ke bhaag ho" or "kho rahe ho aaj kis
khayaal mein" or "raat dhal chuki hai subah ho gayi", observe the way he
pronounces the last vowel (which happens to be long in all cases). He will
say it _continuously_ while the intensity (or pitch) slowly and magically
approaches zero to give a magical sensation as he ceases to say the vowel.
Lata's effort just pales in comparison. She totally lacks that continuity
and smoothness.
Hemant Kumar has a divine and magical ability to maintain `continuity' and
the `tilting' feeling while smoothly translating from high pitch to low (or
zero) pitch (or vice versa). It makes him sound terrific in tilting type
slow songs. He has exploited that god-given ability in many songs and will
remain in the hearts of fans as a truly divine singer. Many singers have
good voices, but Hemant Kumar was unique. He was an ultimate magician
musician. Listening to him gives my mind a feeling of sitting in a slowly
tilting golden palanquin. Yes, a tilting golden palanquin, I think that was
a very good and apt simile.
There might not have been too many of his great songs, but the songs he left
form a great treasure and he has done enough to be "the greatest" in the
minds of some. I'll call the singer who gives me the maximum satisfaction as
the "greatest" -- I don't care about versatility, suiting various actors etc.
TALAT MEHMOOD:
When it comes to indispensability (one of the main aspects considered by
Abhay), a large percentage of Talat's songs cannot be sung by anyone else.
Atleast, it seems to my mind that a large percentage of Talat's songs
(whether romantic or tragic or their combo) will lose their charm if sung by
Rafi or someone else. No one else simply had it in his voice. Talat's voice
has a unique `dard' in it, a desperation (may be that's a wrong word) in it,
which is so pure, so natural and so original.
Can anyone else sing "meri yaad mein tum na aansoon bahaanaa"? Or "ae mere
dil kahin aur chal" or "ye hawaa ye raat ye chaandni" or "zindagi denewaale
sun" or "jaayein to jaayein kahaan" or "jalte hain jiske liye" or "tasveer
banaataa hoon" or "phir wohi shaam wohi gam" or "ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le
chal" or "andhe jahaan ke andhe raaste" or "ae gam-e-dil kyaa karoon" or
"hamse aayaa na gayaa" or "ashakon ne jo paayaa hai" or "bechain nazar
betaab jigar" or "mere seene pe zaraa haath to" or "hai sab se madhur wo
geet" or "shaam-e-gam ki kasam" or "main dil hoon ek armaan bharaa" or
countless other songs......
He again is great enough to be "the undoubted greatest" to some minds.
[BTW, talking about Talat, I remembered this: I read a few years (4-5) back
that Talat's son took it to the singing business (in Pakistan??). I haven't
heard of him after that. Any info on him?]
MANNA DEY:
Abhay said most of his songs could've been sung by Rafi and KK (or am I
misquoting? I hope not!). But I think the other way round! _Manna_ could've
managed many of Rafi and KK songs!
He had the seriousness and the depth that Kishore's voice had, the lightness
and the fluidity that Rafi's voice had and the innocence and the simplicity
that Mukesh's voice had. Above all, he had the liveliness and the expression
that Manna's voice had! He was a really gifted singer. Too bad the Hindi
film playback industry (and even the Bengali film industry for that matter)
didn't use him too well.......
Abhay asked to imagine "sur naa saje kyaa gaaoon main" in Rafi's voice. I,
for one, cannot! No way can I imagine many of Manna's semi-classicals in any
other person's voice (even in Jesudas's voice). No one else has that
liveliness of voice and the ability to pour emotions into a song. No one can
match Manna's class atleast as far as semi-classicals go.
Well, I wanted to include Mukesh also in this article when I started it, but
had to remove his name from the title now as I don't feel like writing
anymore. I give up for now. Bye!
PVR
PVR Narasimha Rao
In article <1qug0m$9...@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>, ava...@D012S247.uucp (Abhay Avachat) writes:
:) tumhari", I hated it. But then he showed me a video cassette of BSB's
:) songs, it's wonderful. There is one song on a beach with BSB himself
:) acting. He sings a comlpete stanza in one breath without taking a pause,
:) without too much noticable stress ! Apart from the feat of singing for
:) N no of seconds without pause, the song is also sweet and watchable. I
:) have forgotten the name of the movie. Oooops, this is not BSB thread, I
I too don't remember the name of the original Tamil movie, but its Telugu
version was named "O Paapaa Laali". It had SPB in the lead role and he
played it beautifully. He's not just a good singer, he can act very well. He
got a lot of offers in several movies after that movie, but he decided to
not overdo acting. The song you mentioned is a marvellous song. A great
effort. Fans of SPB (BTW, it took a while for me to figure out that you
meant S.P.Balasubrahmanyam by BSB!) tried to get that feat recorded in the
Guinness book of records. They have records like the longest book-reading
without gasping in that book, but, for some technical reasons, they didn't
agree to record this feat. (`Reading a book' is well-defined, but `singing'
isn't well-defined. So, what do you mean by `singing without gasping'? I
think that was their reason.)
:) am sorry.]
Never mind. You can always start a new thread!
PVR
Abhay Avachat
Hi,
First of all, thanx to PVR for a nice article and starting a +ve
discussion. Also sorry for abbreviating S.P.Bal.. as BSB (!),
I meant SPB.
I once again should make it clear that I am _NOT_ expressing doubts
about a particular singer's ability to sing nicely, or should anybody
consider a particular singer as "the Greatest". Such opinions are
subjective.
The famous singers of the older generations eg Rafi, KK, Talat, Mukesh,
Manna, Hemantkumar were truely good singers, and very imp. - original.
Nobody copied other, everybody has his own characteristc style of
singing, everybody had a different "type" of voice. Every one of them
has his share of great songs. Every one of them had or has fans.
And what I agree completely is what one of these say singer-A has in his
voice, what he put in a particular song, what special qualities he had
and used for that song ... the singer-B just wouldn't have been able to
match it. And vice versa. Period.
Actually my point is something else. It's not whether singer-A could
have reproduced the same effect as singer-B, but .. Had the song been
sung originally by singer-A rather than singer-B, would you have liked
it more ?
This all seems fuzzy, perhaps it is fuzzy. I am really not very good at
expressing what I feel. Let me try to explain it further, hope this
doesn't make it more blah blah.
This "substitution-idea" comes to me sometimes when I watch a movie.
eg. After seeing Saajan, _I_ felt Sanjay Dutt has completely ruined the
role, had Amitabh been young he would have done it better. The role
reminded me AB's role in Mukaddar Ka Sikandar, such sacrificing roles
are very common in Hindi movies.
But after seeing "Sparsh" where Nasir has played the role of a blind
person, _I_ felt nobody, NOBODY on this earth would have done this
role so nicely, even AB wouldn't match.
Such feelings of "total indispensability" I often get when I watch many
great actors perform like AB, Nasir, Kamala Hasan ... a long list.
And many times I feel the other way round about the performance of some
other actors, many times these actors are _NOT_ bad.
Something similar I feel about many songs. That doesn't mean I just
don't like the singers or I fail to appreciate their special chars. ,
but _I_ just feel - "Well, maybe .. maybe, here xxx would have been
better".
This feeling I have _NOT_ for _ALL_ the songs of a particular singer,
but for many (! now how do I explain what I mean by many ?! ) songs.
Many (!) of them I mentioned in my earlier post.
What PVR said about Hemant's song "Yaad kiyan dilne kahaan ho tum", I
agree 100%. That song IS Hemantkumar's song. No doubt. (to me). But
what about "Jara najronse kehadoji.." ? Hemant has sung it pretty well.
But I personally would have found Rafi much better here, esp. where
there is just peshkaari of some shers inbetween. Not that Hemant did a
bad job, but I think the way Rafi does a justice to Shayari, nobody else
does. Again IMHO only.
About Talat. I myself was surprised when I had such a feeling about his
songs, actually this whole chukker started with one of his songs, PVR
has mentioned. There was a song in "Chayaageet" by Rafi, MD Madanmohan.
"Tuze kya sunaoon main dilruba, tere saamane mera haal hain". Suddenly
I remembered the song in EXACTLY the same tune, by Talat, MD Sajjad,
(I posted about this sometime back, thanx to that person was it Atul?)
"Yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chandani.." . Well, I thought, the one by Rafi in
same tune sounds better ! Then I started having thoughts in the same way
which I said above about actors. Till then I never thought about this
whole substitution business in songs.
Among other songs PVR mentioned, I still strongly feel the following
songs would have been better had they been originally sung by Rafi.
Jalate hain jiske liye, Yeh hawah yeh raat ye chandani.
Again not to forget - IMHO only.
About Manna, I sure did a mistake. I take back my "Sur na saje" view.
Manna was also very very good at singing semiclassical songs, and since
I am not an expert in classical music, I shouldn't say Rafi would have
done it better. But I also won't agree that Manna would have done better
in Rafi'S semiclassical songs eg. "Man tarapat hardarashan ko aaj" or
"Madhuban me Radhika nache re".
But what about other songs "Saanjh dhali, dilki lagi.." ?
Also PVR, you mentioned that Manna would have matched KK. This is hard
for me. Their are songs by KK which _JUST_ won't sound so good by any
other singer on this earth, and as long as Sun and Moon exist ! Can
you suggest any song by KK for which we could have done with Manna ?
Just a question, no personal attack implied please.
Well this is a second marathon article by me in two days, God, that's
going to cost something !
Ramesh Hariharan
>
>TALAT MEHMOOD:
>
>When it comes to indispensability (one of the main aspects considered by
>Abhay), a large percentage of Talat's songs cannot be sung by anyone else.
>Atleast, it seems to my mind that a large percentage of Talat's songs
>
>that Talat's son took it to the singing business (in Pakistan??). I haven't
>heard of him after that. Any info on him?]
I missed one of his concerts in NC, Raleigh some two years back .. he
was touring with his son.. I heared from a friend of mine that Talat was
awesome (as expected) but my friend insisted on calling his son THE GALAT
MEHMOOD .. I guess he really sucked.. he was trying some disco music
with Talat's slow numbers.
Just my 0.0002 paisa.
--
******************************************************************************
Ramesh Hariharan, Chem. Engg., Princeton Univ.
*****************************************************************************
Ramesh Hariharan
>
>Abhay said most of his songs could've been sung by Rafi and KK (or am I
>misquoting? I hope not!). But I think the other way round! _Manna_ could've
>managed many of Rafi and KK songs!
>
>He had the seriousness and the depth that Kishore's voice had, the lightness
>and the fluidity that Rafi's voice had and the innocence and the simplicity
>that Mukesh's voice had. Above all, he had the liveliness and the expression
>that Manna's voice had! He was a really gifted singer. Too bad the Hindi
>film playback industry (and even the Bengali film industry for that matter)
>didn't use him too well.......
Right on the money !
>
>Abhay asked to imagine "sur naa saje kyaa gaaoon main" in Rafi's voice. I,
>for one, cannot! No way can I imagine many of Manna's semi-classicals in any
>other person's voice (even in Jesudas's voice). No one else has that
>liveliness of voice and the ability to pour emotions into a song. No one can
>match Manna's class atleast as far as semi-classicals go.
I partly agree with you with regards most other singers .. but Yesudas
did not get much of a chance to prove himself... he has not sung many ..
but I'd suggest you listen to
"Kahan se aaye badira" ... a very semiclassical song with Hemanti Shukla
from Chashme Budhdoor (sp?)
and tell me he can't pour emotions into his songs.
>
>
>Well, I wanted to include Mukesh also in this article when I started it, but
>had to remove his name from the title now as I don't feel like writing
>anymore. I give up for now. Bye!
>
>PVR
Give up ... Me 2 ...
Dev Alok
In article <C5s3...@rice.edu>, p...@rice.edu (PVR Narasimha Rao) writes:
> Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.misc
> Path: taco!rock!concert!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!newsfeed.rice.edu!rice!pvr
> From: p...@rice.edu (PVR Narasimha Rao)
> Subject: SPBalu (Re: (!Rafi) && (!KK))
> Message-ID: <C5s3...@rice.edu>
> Originator: p...@argo.rice.edu
> Keywords: Other singers that Rafi-KK.
> Sender: ne...@rice.edu (News)
> Reply-To: p...@rice.edu (PVR Narasimha Rao)
> Organization: Rice University
> References: <1qug0m$9...@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de>
> Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 00:31:13 GMT+5:00
> Lines: 32
I remember myself and a friend of mine ( Subra ! ) once timed this
verse in question while watching olium olium . SPB sings that whole para for
28 seconds straight without gasping. If someone has heard that song he will
realize that there is absolutely no strain in SPB voice even in the dying
seconds which used to make me wonder if this whole thing was fake. Anyway !!
ALOK