I find it difficult to understand why Suman Kalyanpur did not get more opportunities. She was an excellent singer, IMO.
I think this had something to do with Lata and her alleged policy of discriminating against other talented singers.
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I find it difficult to understand why Suman Kalyanpur did not get more opportunities. She was an excellent singer, IMO.
I think this had something to do with Lata and her alleged policy of discriminating against other talented singers.
SRK, yes, Suman Kalyanpur was a very good singer. Her problem was that she did not adopt a style of her own. She followed the path laid out by Lata, her style was very similar to Lata's.
This could be because the SJ duo had their period of misunderstanding with Lata and they needed somebody to step into her shoes. Even SDB tried her out ("Na tum hame jaano") , but not too often. Interestingly, there was supposed to have been an incident where Lata mistook Suman's voice for her's once and was flabbergasted as she had never such a song at all.
Some of OP Nayyar's best creations were
Man mora baawra (sung by Rafi for guess who...Kishore kumar in "Kalpana").
Too hai mera prem devta (Rafi and Manna Dey)
Naaznin bada rangin hai waada tera
(Rafi and Asha)
Humne to dil ko aapke kadmon mein rakh diya (Rafi and Asha , one of my favourites , I think from "mere sanam". The same movie had Rafi's "Tukde Hai mere" and ofcourse the classy "Pukartha Chalaa hoon mein").
I love the violin "intrusion" in this song. Beautifully positioned and the melody is simply superb , good "sangathis" by Rafi.
Personnally, never did much care for Suman Kalyanpur (especially in higher pitches). But she did o.k in "Ajhun na aayae baalma - saaven beeta jaye" with Rafi.
Sriram, the OP Nayyar songs you've listed are excellent. One more favourite of mine - Balma khulli havayen". According to rumours, after an unpleasant incident with Lata, O.P Nayyar swore he would achieve fame without Lata and stuck to Asha then onwards. Anyone remember a Lata song set to music by O.P Nayyar? Is there one?
Sorry - didn't mean to offend any Suman Kalyanpur fans. Just my opinion:-)
Nalini,
No , not a single song.
When queried about this, he diplomatically said that he Lata's spritual voice did not suit his peppy songs. I read an article written by Raju Bharatan on this issue. The gist of the story is ....
Roshan, one of Lata's favourite composers was unceremoniously thrown out from a movie by the producer much against the contract. Lata approached the MD's association header by Anil Biswas to sort out the issue. The stand the association later took was that no MD would sign up for the movie and that Roshan had to be reinstated. The hapless producer then approached OP Nayyar who was on the brink of poverty (OP Nayyar states that he did not have money to buy his baby a bottle of milk) . This, obviously being a boon in disguise, OPN accepted it but this resulted in some unsavoury episodes with stiff words being exchanged .Probably, this coupled with the fact that most of his earlier compositions went either to Shamshad Begum or Geeta Dutt would have worsened the situation.
aankhOn mein qayaamat kE kaajal
hOntOn pE gazab kI laali hai
bandaa parwar kahiyE kiskE
bandaa parwar kahiyE kiskE
taqdeer sanwarnE waali hai
VaNakkam Kavignyar KaaLai avargaLe,
That was sung by Mahendra Kapoor right ? A typical horse-beat OPN stuff. But one should commend him for the varied tunes he could compose set to the same beat without the slightest compromise on melody.
Never liked Mahendra Kapoor's voice although some of his songs like "beetE huE lamhOn ki kasakh aaj tO hOgi" are really good ones. And of course his most famous one is "mEri dEsh kI dharthI sona uglE uglE heerE mOti"
To me, MK was OK. I liked him very much in the song he sang with Manna Dey "Jisko nahin dekha hamne kabhi" (I hope I am right), it goes on futher like "Aye Maa, teri soorat se alag
Bhagwan ki soorat kya hogi". He infact overshadowed Manna Dey. I like his "Tum nacho ras barse" , very classical and ofcourse his "Navrang" songs composed by C Ramachandra and "Rafta Rafta" with Asha. An interesting tidbit about MK, he and Aarti Mukherjee were the winners of the Murphy singing competition and guess who were the judges ? Anil Biswas, Naushad, Madan Mohan , C Ramachandra etc.