Formative Days: Before proceeding ahead with some of important songs sung by Rafi Sahib with other composers, I must talk about his background. Muhammad Rafi was ‘Amritsariya’ by birth, born in Kotla Sultan Singh on December 24, 1924. Noticing a natural flair for singing in Muhammad Rafi, his elder brother decided to get Muhammad Rafi tutelage from the two greats; Bare Ghulam Ali Khan and Ustad Wahid Khan. At the age of 20, Muhammad Rafi had already entered into his professional career as a singer. He sang his first song, a Punjabi number, “Soniye Hiriye” for the Shyam Sunder produced 1944 movie ‘Gul Baloch’, released on February 28. This music composer got so impressed by Muhammad Rafi’s performance that he used his vocals in all other movies he composed music for, including the movie ‘Gaon Ki Gori’. It should be added that earlier Muhammad Rafi was invited by Nasir, a well-known actor of those times to Bombay and by then, there was no turning back by 1948. The great crooners KL Saigol and Pandit Paulsikar appreciated his voice. It was during these days that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated and Muhammad Rafi sang a song “Suno Suno Ay Duniya Walon” written by Rajinder Krishan with music by Hunslal Bhagatram. This song touched everyone and it became a great success.

As a singer myself, I have always believed in the fact that it is very easy for a full throat singer to get out of tune at times as applying force on vocal chords can easily make you sing a little above a note (sur charha) or below a note (kum sura). With due deference to famous singers Masood Rana and Mukesh, they fall in these categories respectively despite having given wonderful songs in their singing journeys. The exceptions in this domain were Nurjehan and Muhammad Rafi, both full throat singers but remained tuneful singers; a difficult craft to preserve. We shall talk about the life, songs and singing qualities of Muhammad Rafi in this discourse. Muhammad Rafi may have sung many songs that the music lovers started humming his songs before the song “Akele Main Woh Ghabrate Tou Honge” for the film ‘Biwi’ with music composed by Khayyam but this song played a lot of role in tuning the career of Muhammad Rafi.

Association with Khayyam: This observation drifts me away for a while from the main topic to the abilities of music composer Khayyam who played an important role in the formative days of Muhammad Rafi. Khayyam is a fine music director who created his own alcove but had to be among the highly talented, but not-so-fortunate, music directors in the initial days of his struggle. The main reason is, of course, that he was a victim of a) lack of giant banner films in his fold in his struggling days and b) sticking to his own original style of music compositions. These banners were monopoly of Naushad Ali, Shankar Jaikishen and SD Burman in those days, for which Muhammad Rafi too gave memorable songs as we shall discuss subsequently in this discourse. Due to perhaps this reason, after giving beautiful music in the movie ‘Shola Aur Shabnam’, Khayyam was seriously contemplating a total change in his style of music. By doing so, he was hoping that it would lead to greater success but in Khayyam’s own words in one of his interviews on Vividhbharati, that he once came across famous music composer SD Burman who had advised him not to change his own natural style at any cost! Sticking to his own style of composing music, despite spending some years not getting enough work, made Khayyam a great success subsequently. In the movie just referred to above, two timeless beauties by Muhammad Rafi are “Jane Kaya Dhoondti Rehti Hain” and a duet “Jeet Hi Lain Gei Baazi” with Lata Mangeshkar (a beautiful soft melody). Time has proved that though Khayyam’s repertoire with Muhammad Rafi was relatively small in number but all the songs sung by Muhammad Rafi are top class songs with lot of variety in them. They can be labelled anything but stereotype songs. Apart from the songs mentioned above, these songs are; “Ik Dil Nei Kaha” in the 1949 film ‘Parda’, “Hei Kali Kali Kei Lab Par Tere” in the 1958 movie ‘Lala Rukh’ (a happy rhythmic number composed in Arabic style of music), “Sab Ki Khair Ho Baba” in 1958 movie ‘Phir Subha Ho Gi’ (a Faqir song), “Chala Chal Chala Chal Gar Hai Andhera” in 1960 movie ‘Barood’, “Yeh Raat Bahut Rangeen Sahi” and “Tum Chali Jaaogi, Parchhayiyan Reh Jaayengi” (both romantic songs) in 1964 movie ‘Shagoon’, “Theherye Hosh Main Aa Lun” (with Suman Kalyanpur; a melodious number) and “Meri Nigah Nei Kaya Kaam” (with beautiful Santoor introductory piece) in 1965 movie ‘Muhabbat Is Ko Kehte Hain’, a beautiful melody “Aur Kutch Dair Theher Aur Kutch Dair Na Ja” from 1966 movie ‘Aakhri Khat’, another beautiful melody “Kahin Aik Masoom Nazuk” from 1977 movie ‘Shankar Hussain’ and finally “She’r Ka Husn Ho, Naghme Ki Jawaani Ho Tum” again from the movie ‘Shankar Hussain’. Continued

From : Daily Times February 24, 2014

Part II

Khayyam also composed wonderful non-film songs for Rafi. I remember having possessed a 78 speed record with two ghazals on either side. These were “Yei Na Thi Hamari Qismet” – a Ghalib number and another one “Ghazab Kiya Tere Wa’ade Pei Aitbar Kiya” – a Dagh Dehlvi number. These ghazals were composed in very soft, melodious tunes. Then a geet “Meri Muhabbat Qubool Kar Lo” on one side and another “Pooch Na Mujh Sei Dil Kei Fasane” on the other side of the record kept on fascinating me for a long time. Mushtaq Hashmi and I used to sing these songs for our friends in Logia, Government College Lahore in 1960s. Radio listeners also used to listen to these numbers and enjoy these melodies. I remember Rafi’s bhajan “Tere Bharose Hei Nandlala” as one of the best Rafi-Khayyam’s combined creative religious endeavour. The base of the composition was Raag Pahari, a favourite raag of Khayyam in, which he composed many other tunes in his film career. Last but not the least, Rafi and Begum Akhtar sang melodious numbers of Ghalib’s ghazals composed by Khayyam on Ghalib’s centenary in a LP form. I participated in 1969 centenary celebrations in London representing Pakistan whereas Rajinder Singh Bedi and actor Om Parkash represented India.

It is reported that Khayyam once mentioned in his Vividhbahrati interviews that during mid-‘60s, Rafi’s popularity graph was at its peak and his national and international musical shows used to be very successful and he carried out these shows only with successful music directors of that time like Shankar Jaikishan and so on. So, Khayyam too approached Rafi Saheb once for doing one of such shows with him but Rafi Saheb, after consulting his brother-in-law, had politely declined this request on the pretext that “Khayyam Sahib, aap aur bhi zara stabilise ho jaayiye aur us ke baad show karne se acha hoga!” (Mr Khayyam, let you first get a little more stabilised, then doing such a show shall be fruitful). Naturally Khayyam was upset at this response and remained disturbed with Rafi for some time on account of this rejection.

Association with Shankar Jaikishen: The list of Muhammad Rafi’s songs with music duo Shankar Jaikishen is also quite impressive despite the latter’s tilt towards singer Mukesh because of Raj Kapoor’s influence. These songs are “Badan ei Sitare Lipatte Hee”, “An evening in Paris”, “Surahidar Garden Koyel Si Hei Awaaz”, “Phool sa chehra”, “Aa janeman, aa janeman”, “Aik karki hei jin sei”, “Na mukhra mor kei jaao”, “Dharakne lagta hei mera dil”, “Dil lei gai”, “Yei mera prem pater parh kar keh” (from the 1964 movie ‘Sangam’; a very well acted movie by Rajinder Kumar and Vyjantimala opposite Raj Kapoor), ‘Falsafa Pyar ka tum kya jano”, “Kaun hei jo sapno mei aya” (from the movie ‘Jhuk Gaya Asmaan’), “Teri pyari pyari surat ko kisi ki nazar”, “Aaj kal tere mere pyar kei charche” (with Suman Kalyanpur from the movie ‘Barhamchari’ in twist dance beat) and a lilting number – a lullaby “Main gaaun tum so jaao” and a medium fast number “Dil kei jharoke main tujh ko bitha kar”, “Choti si mulaqaat pyar bun gai”, above all “Baharo phool barsao mera mehboob aya hei” picturised on Rajinder Kumar in the movie ‘Suraj’; all written by Hasrat Jaipuri. Two songs “Chehre pei gireen zulfain” and “Itna hei tum sei pyar” from this movie are romantic numbers. The song I like the best is “Yaad na jeye beete dinon ki” from the movie ‘Dil Aik Mandir’. This song was penned by Shailender. The song “Dil use do jo jaan dei dei” with Asha from the movie ‘Andaz’ was a very beguiling number as well. Another song “Re mama re mama re” (a comedy number sung for kids going with the theme of the film) from this movie was catchy number. The song “Teri pyari pyari surat ko kisi ki nazar” used to be aired on Radio Ceylon’s Binaca mala for many weeks from the movie ‘Sasural’. Another song, “Kaya mil gaya kaya” from the same movie was in Rafi’s voice as well as the question-answer number “Ik sawaal main karun” (with Lata) was from this movie. SK were very good in composing romantic songs picturised on actors such as Shammi Kapoor and Rajinder Kumar; especially for dance sequences for the former actor, for example “Aei gulbadan” and “Khuli palak main jhoota ghusa” from the comedy movie ‘Professor’.

As reiterated above, Shankar Jaikishan and Muhammed Rafi with lyricists Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri gave many hit songs for many movies. They had one of the best collaboration in the Bollywood history. SJ chose Muhammad Rafi for over 80 percent of their compositions. Out of six Filmfare awards, three of them were from SJ compositions with lyrics by Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri. Some of their movies together are ‘Brahmachari’, ‘Suraj’, ‘Andaz’, ‘Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai’, ‘Gumnaam’, ‘Chori Chori’ and Sasural’ to name a few. Continued