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Mohammed Rafi: Golden voice of the silver screen – Book tribute to great Singer


Mohammed Rafi: Golden voice of the silver screen – Book tribute to great Singer

Many Scholars and critics go beyond the camera and penned on Bollywood stars to provide the best and worst details of their life. Recently many biographies and autobiographies have been published to tell Untold stories of Bollywood stars in analytical way.  Even after this, stories of many big personalities have yet to be told and popular playback singer Mohammed Rafi was one of them.  Sujata Dev, an entrepreneur with a background in Mathematics, Statistics and economics, has penned the life of legendary singer Mohammed Rafi and name of the book is Mohammed Rafi: Golden voice of the silver screen. This book is the story of musical journey of Mohammed Rafi with his music composer, with his co singers and with film actors to whom he had lent his voice as playback singer

From Yogesh Gogwekar

Sujata Dev has worked more than two decades in the Media and entertainment Industry. She also served as a speaker at several seminars and forum on M & E, Telecom and Economics worldwide. Her research work on telecom and Entertainment has been appreciated across the Asia, Europe and USA.  Music is her passion whether it is Indian or western. She has done the research on musical life of such legendary singer who has been fascinated her from Childhood. And that singer is Mohammed Rafi. It is captivating book which chronicles the life of Mohammed Rafi. This book throws light on early life of Mohammed Rafi, his life in Kolta Sultan Singh village near Amritsar, his life in Lahore, musical life in Mumbai and his contributions to the music world through the Cinema. This book tells us the ability of Mohammed Rafi to mould his vocals according to the given situations in the film and mood of the character. Due to this, he has become voice of all leading men of Bollywood.

Mohammed Rafi born on 24th December 1924 at Kolta Sultan Sing village near Amritsar. His early career in music started by the Punjabi song “Khedan de din chaar’ which was sung by faqir in his village. In 1920 , he shifted to Lahore where he learnt Hindustani classical music from Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Mattoo and Firoze Nizami. In 1941, he started his performance on stage and given his first performance as playback singer in Punjabi film GUL BALOCH. He was also invited in All India radio in 1944 to sing under the music direction of Shyam Sunder.

Rafi came to Mumbai in 1944 with poet Tanvir Naqvi who introduced him to film producers. Again Shyam Sunder provided him the opportunity to sing duet song with G M Durrani in the Hindi film Gaon Ki Gori, but Rafi’s career as a playback singer started after his association with Naushad. Rafi came to Naushad with a letter recommended by Naushad’s father. This association started from Anmol Ghadi in 1946 and ended up with total 149 songs out of which 81 songs were solo for Naushad.  After establishing as Playback singer, Rafi worked with almost all music composers and established himself as versatile playback singer. His songs ranged from Classical to Patriotic songs , Sad lamentation to highly Romantic , Qawwalis , Ghazals and Bhajans. He was known for his ability by adapting his voice with the reflection of unique style of acting. He was most sought-after singer from 1946 to 1980.

According to this book ,  no music directors have created any composition especially for him. Other than Naushad , he sung  with S D Burman , Shankar Jaikisan , Laxmikant Pyarelal  , O P Nayyar , Roshan , Ravi and Madan Mohan. Major contribution of Rafi was creating the super stars out of ordinary actors. Many heroes were not ready to work without Rafi. He was an ideal choice for them. Rafi sang for all to actors like Shammi Kappor , Shashi Kapoor , Devanand ,Dilip Kumar , Dharmendra ,Jeetendra , Rajesh Khanna , Guru Dutt , Jonny Walker , etc. this book has also mentioned the unfortunate discord between Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar over the royalty issue. Lata Mangeshkar asked the support of Rafi regarding the payment of royalty to singers and Rafi did not agree. Therefore, they did not sing together for  three  years. Even after three years , patched up was done but tuning between them was not proper.

Such a great versatile singer died on 31st July 1980 in Mumbai. His voice was synonymous with melody and brought success to Indian film music. Even after his death, we enjoy his songs with same enthusiastic manner. This book is not only a great tribute to prolific singer but also providing good musical information to the younger generations



Mumbai

26.09.2019.




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