Mohammed Rafi

Mohammed Rafi (Hindi: मोहम्मद रफ़ी, Urdu: محمد رفیع, December 24, 1924 – July 31, 1980), often addressed as Rafi Saahab, is an Indian playback singer whose career spanned four decades. A versatile singer, Rafi sang in many Indian languages including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and Telugu. He also recorded English and Persian songs. He is primarily remembered, however, for his Hindi-Urdu songs, which still remain very popular in the Indian subcontinent and also among the Indian diaspora. Along with Mukesh and Kishore Kumar, he was one of the leading male Bollywood playback singers from the 1940s to the mid 1980s. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1965.

Rafi was born the youngest of six sons of Hajji Ali Mohammad at Kotla Sultan Singh (or Kotla Sultanpur), a town near Amritsar in Punjab (British India).Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, started singing by imitating chants of a fakir in his village. In 1935-36, Rafi's father shifted to Lahore, and the rest of the family followed later. Rafi's family managed a men's salon in Lahore's Noor Mohalla. It was his brother-in-law Mohammed Hameed who spotted the talent in Rafi and encouraged him. Rafi learnt Hindustani classical music from maestros Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.

Rafi's first public performance came at the age of 13, when he was allowed to sing at a concert featuring the legendary K. L. Saigal.In 1942, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut as a playback singer in the duet "Soniye nee, Heeriye nee" with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (the film was released in 1944).Soon after, Rafi was invited by the Lahore radio station to sing for them.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born on October 13, 1948 in the city of Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was the fifth child and first son of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, a distinguished and legendary musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and Qawwal. Nusrat's family, which included his four older sisters and his younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan grew up in central Lyallpur, in a small flat which was rented from a local businessman. In 1979, Nusrat married his first cousin, Naheed (the daughter of Fateh Ali Khan's brother, Salamat Ali Khan); they had one daughter, Nida.

Qawwali is a performance art that has traditionally been passed down within families. Nusrat's family has an unbroken tradition of performing Qawwali for approximately 600 years. Nusrat's father was initially reluctant to allow him to enter the family business, instead hoping his son would become a doctor or an engineer, having felt Qawwals had a low social status. However, Nusrat's enthusiasm for Qawwali eventually persuaded his father to train him in the art. Nusrat began by learning to play tabla alongside his father before progressing to learn Raag Vidya and Bolbandish. He then went on to learn to sing within the classical framework of khayal in the Qawwal Bachchon Ka Gharana and was taught dhrupad from the Dagar family. Khan's training with his father was cut short when his father died in 1964, leaving Nusrat's paternal uncles, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, to complete his training.

His first performance was at a traditional graveside ceremony for his father, known as chehlum, which took place forty days after his father's death. In 1971, after the death of Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan, Nusrat became the official leader of the family Qawwali party and the party became known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. Nusrat assumed leadership of the party, despite the fact that Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan, who was Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan's son, was considerably older than him.

Nusrat's first public performance as the leader of the Qawwali party was at a studio recording broadcast as part of an annual music festival organised by Radio Pakistan, known as Jashn-e-Baharan. Nusrat went on to distinguish himself from other Qawwals and became renowned on the Indian subcontinent and in the Muslim world. He sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally in Persian, Brajbhasha and Hindi. His first major hit in Pakistan was the song Haq Ali Ali, which was performed in a traditional style and with traditional instrumentation. The song featured restrained use of Nusrat's sargam improvisations and attracted a large number of listeners.

Early in his career, Nusrat was signed up by Oriental Star Agencies [OSA] of Birmingham UK to their Star Cassette Label. OSA sponsored regular concert tours by Nusrat to the U.K. from the early '80s onwards, and released much of this live material (albeit not always very well recorded) on cassette, CD, videotape and DVD. The vast majority of Nusrat's qawwali performances that are available today in video format on various labels comes from these OSA-sponsored concert tours.

Kishore Kumar

Kishore Kumar (Hindi: किशोर कुमार}) (August 4, 1929 – October 13, 1987) was Indian film playback singer and actor. He also achieved notable success as a lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter.

Kishore Kumar was a prolific vocalist and sang in many Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam and Oriya. Along with Mohammed Rafi, and Mukesh, he was one of the leading male Bollywood playback singers from the 1950s to the mid-1980s.

In October 1987, he died following a massive heart attack. He had been married four times and is survived by his two sons Amit Kumar, who made his career in playback singing in Bollywood and Bengali films, and Sumit Kumar.

Kishore Kumar, called Kishore Kumar Ganguly in his childhood, was born in a Bengali family in the Khandwa town of Central Provinces and Berar, British India (now in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh). His father Kunjalal Ganguly was a lawyer and his mother Gouri Devi came from a wealthy family. Kishore Kumar was the second youngest of four siblings, the other three being Ashok Kumar (the eldest), Sati Devi, and Anoop Kumar. While Kishore Ganguly was still a child, Ashok Kumar became a popular Bollywood actor. Later, Anoop Kumar also ventured into cinema with the help of Ashok Kumar. Spending time with his brothers, Kishore Kumar too started to take a keen interest in movies and music. He became a fan of singer-actor Kundan Lal Saigal (whom he considered his guru).

After Ashok Kumar became a Bollywood star, the Ganguly family used to visit Mumbai regularly. Abhas Kumar changed his name to Kishore Kumar and started his cinema career as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies, where his brother worked. His first film as an actor was Shikari (1946), in which Ashok Kumar played the lead role. Music director Khemchand Prakash gave him a chance to sing the song Marne ki duayen kyon mangu for the film Ziddi (1948). After this, Kishore Kumar got many other assignments, but he was not very serious about a film career.In 1949, he decided to settle in Mumbai.

Kishore Kumar played hero in the Bombay Talkies film Andolan (1951), directed by Phani Majumdar. Although Kishore Kumar got some assignments as an actor with help of his brother, he was more interested in becoming a successful singer. He was not interested in acting, but his elder brother Ashok Kumar wanted him to be an actor like himself.

He starred in Bimal Roy's Naukri (1954) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's directorial debut Musafir (1957). Salil Chowdhury, the music director for Naukri was initially dismissive of him as a singer, when he came to know that Kishore Kumar didn't have any formal training in music. However, after hearing his voice, he gave him the song Chhota sa ghar hoga, which was supposed to be sung by Hemant Kumar.

Mukesh

Mukesh was born in Punjab, in a small middle class family. Mukesh was the sixth in a family of ten children. His father Lala Zorawar Chand Mathur was an engineer. His mother was Chand Rani. The music teacher who came home to teach Mukesh's sister Sundar Pyari, found a pupil in Mukesh who would listen from the adjoining room. He had a younger brother Parmeshwari Das. Mukesh left school after the 10th standard and worked briefly for the Delhi Department of Public Works. Mukesh experimented with voice recordings during his employment in Delhi and gradually developed his singing abilities.

Mukesh got married in 1946 to Sarla Trivedi (1928 – 26 February 2008) in a temple in Kandiwali, at the residence of Mr. R. D. Mathur. Sarla was the daughter of a Gujarati Brahmin millionaire. With him having no proper house, an erratic income and a supposedly "immoral" profession, Mukesh and Sarla had to elope. Everyone made dire predictions of unhappy days and divorce; but both weathered the lean days and celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary on 22 July 1976, five days before his departure for the U.S.A. on 27 July 1976. The couple had five children as Rita, Nitin, Nalini(d. 1978), Mohnish (Taboo - nick name) and Namrata (Amrita). He is the grandfather of Neil Nitin Mukesh.

K.L Saigal

The very name K.L Saigal conjures up an image of a superstar who ruled the screens long before people heard of Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna. Not many are aware of the achievements of this great persona and his contributions to the Hindi film industry. K L Sehgal was undoubtedly India's first superstar whose charisma and magic is still alive and continues to inspire budding talents. Born in Jammu on April 11th, 1904 as Kundan Lal Saigal, he inspired legends like Kishore Kumar and Mukesh to copy his style to make their mark in the industry before developing their own signature tones. His songs are evergreen and are hummed even today. To know more about the life history of K L Saigal, read this biography given below.

K.L Saigal started singing from a very young age and his mother used to take him to Sufi-Pir Salman Yousuf of the Yesvi sect. His father Amarchand Saigal was employed at the court of Maharaja Pratap Singh. At the age of twelve, K.L Saigal sang Meera Bhajan at the court of the king. The Maharaja was really impressed and blessed him saying that he had a bright future. His father was disappointed when he learnt that his son wanted to sing and dropped out of school.

When K.L. Saigal realized that his voice was cracking at the age of 13, he was so shocked that he remained silent for months together. His worried family took him to a saint who told Saigal to refine his voice and not leave practicing. For three years thereafter he practiced with determination and also received some help from Faiyaaz Khan, Pankaj Mullick and Pahari Sanyal, who were the greatest singers of that era. Saigal also learnt to sing in Punjabi when he was in Jalandhar. The most astonishing thing is that he never received any formal training and cultivated his own style, which was accepted and appreciated by all.

K. L Saigal worked as a time keeper with Punjab railways and also a salesman before he chose music as a vocation. Those days, his singing was limited to his friend's circle. During one such occasion of his singing, a sales representative of Hindustan Record Company happened to be present in the congregation. He recognized Saigal's potential and persuaded him to sign a contract for recordings with the company. One of his earliest records "Jhulana Jhulao" in Dev Gandhar raga was a huge hit.

Thus started the flourishing career of K.L Saigal and he started to act and sing in films. Some of his earliest films were Subah Ke Sitare, Zinda Laash and Mohabbat Ke Aason. The songs that showered fame on him were Premnagar Mein Basoongi Ghar Main, Tadapat Beeti Din Rain and Prem Ki Ho Jai from the first feature film Chandidas. He was also the lead actor of the movie. More and more offers started to pour in making him one of the reigning stars of the film industry. His enigmatic voice only made him even more famous.

In the year 1935, Devdas was released, which increased his popularity manifold. Saigal portrayed the character of the love struck and heartbroken Devdas with flawless perfection. His solo performances Balam Aaye Baso and Dukh Ke Ab Din were tagged as immortal. Saigal experimented with many forms of music and perfected Khayal, Bandish, Ghazals, Geets, Bhajans, Hori and Dadra in various Ragas. He also sang in many different languages like Hindi, Urdu, Pushto, Punjabi, Bengali and Tamil. Saigal always drank before recording and he fondly called a peg Kaali Paanch.

The period from 1932 to 1946 is called as Saigal era. Saigal shifted to Bombay in 1940 and did unforgettable films like Bhakta Surdas, Tansen, Kurukshetra, Omar Khayyam, Tadbeer, Shahjahan and Parwana. Some of his immortal songs are Diya Jalao Jagmag Jagmag, Rumjhum Rumjhum Chaal Tihari, Baag Laga Doon Sajani, Chah Barbaad Karegi, Ai Dil-e-beqarar Jhoom, Gham Diye Mustaqil and the eternal Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya.
The great composer Naushad commented that Saigal did not drink while recording for his last two films Shahjahan and Parwana. His addiction to alcohol reached a stage where quitting was just not possible. On January 18th, 1947, at the age of just forty two years, this great inimitable artist passed away. The industry was suddenly deprived of one of the greatest performer. Today, sixty years since his death, his songs continue to bring nostalgic moments alive and remind people of the golden era of music.