Book excerpts of The History Of Indian Film Music : Bollywood News

Where would Indian cinema - specifically Hindi cinema - be without its music? Hindi cinema has been enriched over decades by this art form that has spawned infinite creativity in all its departments - poetry or lyrics, composition, orchestration, vocals and of course the way the songs have been used in the film.

The book - The History Of Indian Cinema, is a collectors item which is a showcase of the best in the Indian Film Music. Its a decade wise journey of Indian Cinema and is a melodic assortment of Bollywood Classics. Starting from the 1930s this journey ends in the 2000s. Its a 10 CD Musical extravaganza of Indian Cinema. The special music pack also includes a book aimed at show casing the different eras of Indian Cinema spanning across 8 decades starting with the 1930s encompassing some rare old pictures and important and interesting facts and figures and old stories of The Hindi Cinema world. Take a look at 24 carat Gold in the form of music which is eternalâ€¦here are some excerptsâ€¦

1950 - 59: The Golden Age Begins

Raaj Kumar and Nargis in Mother India (1957), a cult film with some evergreen songs

Bharat Bhushan and Guru Dutt had their own kind of songs, and so had, of course, Kishore Kumar, who sportingly agreed to have not just Rafi but also Manna Dey sing playback foe him when the song was not up his singing street, Johnny Walker had distinctive songs in several films.

Nutan, Geeta Bali, Nargis, Meena Kumari and Madhubala got song catering to their images, while Vyjayantimala, who came in from the South as a danseuse par excellence, got that kind of cream. Most heroines wanted Lata as their voice and some even had this penned down as a clause in their contracts!

The Decades Revolutionaries

Each decade had its path-breakers who changed the course of trends forever in films and music. The revolutionaries that signaled major changes in this decade were colour in Hindi films (Jhansi Ki Rani, Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, Mother India, and Navrang) and Shammi Kapoor. Colour was prohibitively expensive and films had to be processed abroad, so it took a while to get established.

With a carefully-orchestrated re-lunch, producer S.Mujerji and director Nasir Husain changed forever the concept of the Hindi film hero with Shammi Kapoor (till then just a reprise of dad Prithviraj and elder brother Raj Kapoor and with a string of flops) with Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1957).

Shammi brought in the aggressive hero who broke the monotonous and fake touch-me-not norms of the conventional hero till then. He spawned not just a genre of films but also a whole new school of songs and screen romance. Simultaneously, in the 1960s, he engendered a whole bunch of copycat actors (Biswajeet, Joy Mukerji, Deb Mukerji, and Sanjay Khan) who faded out even before he did in the early 70s.

From Tumsa Nahin Dekha onwards, Shammi was the hero opposite whom a bevy of actresses were lunched.

Author: Rajiv Vijayakar

Book excerpts of 'The History Of Indian Film Music'